tiny steps

Today morning while Jasmine was dropping Jispa off to school, she called me. Jispa has a question “is religion compulsory? Like is it compulsory to have a religion or in an official form you can leave it blank?”. Hmm interesting thought. “I dont know for sure, but I think its optional to have a religion, but many government forms and school forms don’t allow you to say ‘none’”. “but isn’t it my fundamental right to practice whatever religion I want; don’t we have that as a right?”. “well yes, you have but democratic society moves a little slow for this. See things move slowly. Earlier there was the ballot paper and people who dint want to vote for anyone, went and made two stamps on the paper, invalidating their vote. It was a form of protest in which they also got to the booth and ensured that no one cast a dummy vote on their behalf and they refused to choose amongst the crap. Once the electronic voting machines came in this was not possible and hence the NGOs lobbied for “none of the above”. So now you can press none of the above (NOTA) and exercise your right to vote for no one. Yes – right now, even if NOTA wins the majority, nothing will happen and the politician with the majority is still elected but slowly it will make an impact. It will embarrass people and who knows what this will entail in the future. Similarly, today on the Aadhar card, you can choose your sex as male, female or transgender. This is also a big thing in the long run. These are small steps for now that will have greater impact. Democratic society moves slow but it moves with the collective will of the people. Things today will have impact tomorrow. While you were always free to be an atheist, people happily just put in their father’s religion in the form. Now it will slowly change.” Then I remembered and recounted a story of a friend of mine who married inter caste and had a kid. They fought a lot with the authorities and left the religion on the birth certificate blank.

Read story here http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA5LzEyLzI3I0FyMDAxMDQ

Yes, democracy moves slowly and that is by design. It’s also something to do with collective will and conscience of the people. Jispa and I went to see the Guardians of the Galaxy 2. We now see super hero movies without torturing Jasmine. It’s been a great thing to have father daughter time outs watching these action movies. Before the movie starts in India, the national anthem is played. This has been a source of much dispute with the liberals objecting to this jingoism and some refusing to stand up. It is after all not mandatory to stand during the national anthem (its hugely controversial). This has issues with the law and the jealous jingots using force on the rationals. So before this movie – one guy was sitting down and he was obviously a foreigner. Jispa looked at me and spoke to me on that. I explained that “yup, you have a choice to stand or sit but yes, the rest of the populace will jam your happiness if you don’t. But more importantly, it is a question of collective conscience. I may not stand for the anthem but I also realize that I am in India and that this small act of sitting is disrespectful to my hosts. Yes, choose to sit that’s ok. But being insensitive about it in public is a bit of a wrong thing to do. Of course we shouldn’t be on our part too irritated about it. He should understand and we should as well. Intolerance towards people sitting is the worst.”

I don’t pray but I also respect that people believe in the stone that placed in the middle of the sanctum sanctorum and I must appreciate that. I must behave in line with the custom, if I choose to be a part of it. If not, I can exercise my choice and sit at home. Mere misguided rebelliousness if no use to society.

I think I have come a long way. When I was young, I wanted to join the army and fight for my country. Then I would stand anywhere, even alone, when the national anthem was being played. I hated local societies as local political shit shat. Today I have done a complete volte face. Now I am a non-believer in the concept of nation hood and a complete believer in local societies. The impact is greatest when local. Local societies can do much more to change their life and that of their progeny than what nation states can do. And that is granted to them by the construct of the law. Change happens in small things and in small steps. It takes the bearings of age to temper the brute of youth. Things are not what they seem and solutions are never what immediately occur to you. Multiple sides, angles and implications are required to understand the impact of anything. It takes effort and sometimes – inaction. Breathe.

Be happy

This weekend was an important date for Jispa. She had to swim in the Mumbai swim meet to qualify for the state meet. At first when I attended this meet, many years ago, I saw this meet as the apex meet for swimmers in Mumbai as they strove to get in to the next level. I remember the first time that Jispa qualified. It was the 50-meter freestyle race and I saw the race as she came in fourth. It was an awesome moment for us. I distinctly remember noticing that according to me she came in fifth but the race was very tight and the line judge adjudicated that Jispa came fourth. That was great joyous moment for me. It also meant that Jispa would be representing Mumbai at the relay race and that would mean that a state level Gold was in the kitty. They had an awesome team. Three from that quartet have long given up on swimming since then.

When we put Jispa into swim, we did not realise what we were in for. As a family, I insisted that we live the gymkhana life. I fought and insisted that we take the Matunga Gymkhana membership and finally when we had enough money for it, I went and paid up. For a year we did not use the membership after we got it. Then we went to the gym and understood the sports on offer for the child and badminton seemed to be the perfect fit. Swimming was taken on as an essential life skill for which she was enrolled. She then took that up and now that became her biggest goal in her life and has defined a lot of what she now does.

Jispa has been a good swimmer but has never been able to become a great swimmer. I think sometimes great swimmers are just born. They know how to feel the water and how to remain stream lined while pulling through or kicking through. Most importantly they understand their body and the body responds to instructions. Jispa has been disastrous to teach anything. I have tried to teach her to run but she will over correct and she will then start using her own brain, interpret what you say differently and completely jam your happiness. She probably requires a different kind of coach who can understand what she really is inside of her and correct her accordingly. Simple verbal instructions just don’t cut for her. Hence, she is never going to be there counted amongst the best swimmers of the city. He hard work and dedication to swimming will put her on the forefront but will not put in the great league.

He swimming has been in that respect quite ordinary, but there in right there lies my seething anger. In my life, I have never achieved anything quite what she has. Jasmine neither. We never did go after one sport or one skill so untiringly like Jispa has. Of course, she has had the benefit of supporting parents, but that would be too kind to the parents. She has had the ability to go on, constantly, lap after boring lap, fight her pain and soreness, fight her capabilities and push herself. That by in itself is a humongous achievement. That is why I get extremely annoyed and angry. I get extremely angry with myself. I had the gall to call her achievements quite ordinary. I have the gall to say, that was good but not great. I am a bloody ass and I don’t deserve the achievement that I have see my kid get. This is so damn annoying.

In my life, I represented school once, in the under 13 basketball tournaments by virtue of being selected for the team, thanks to a fluke basket during trials. I fibbed that I could play and god smiled on me during the trails in spite of knowing that I would grow up to be atheist. So we practiced and played one match before we got completely beaten by a phenomenal margin in the first match itself. That’s the best of my sporting achievement. The rest was a few inter class matches and cricket in corporate India whacking unfit corporate zombies who bowled silly hops that could be smashed out of the shortened grounds. I have no business to call anyone’s achievement ordinary, especially that of my child.

On the recently concluded meet, Jispa took part in the back-stroke races and the longer distance freestyle races. You are allowed to take part in only 5 races and Jasmine helped her choose by analyzing the timings and the other participants so that she take the strokes that give her the best chance of going through. Some the top swimmers of her age group couldn’t participate in the races and gave their timings to ensure their qualification for the state meet. The top 6 go through. The end result – Jispa won 4 Golds and 1 silver at the meet. And all the races she won, she won by a huge margin. She came up after every race in a not so happy mood and neither did we really enjoy any of her victories. She had not improved her timings that she had given before and these would not help her qualify from state to nationals. Swimmers and their parents are hardened criminals. They are unaffected by glory and achievement. At the point, afterwards in a few days I lost it. I took Jasmine aside and I took Jispa aside. My message was the same thing. What on earth have we become? WE get no joy in winning. A few years ago, we were so happy to qualify, this time, you have the gold medals, you are the bets that is there in Mumbai. Part of the sport is to swim at your bets and yet manage your studies and other work and to have time to show up at the event. Many swimmers who possibly more powerful than you couldn’t manage studies and swim and that’s why they have given up. That, tight there is your achievement. Being the last man standing is also part of the game. Being there when others have remained absent is part of the game. You too had your exams, but you requested and the school changed the date for you, that’s all part of the achievement and thanks to that you swam your five events – and you won and won big. YOU WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP in your age group. In the end that’s what going to written for ages to come. The why as a family can’t we be happy? Why do chase the nest target. Micheal Phelps got Olympic Golds then he wanted more, then he wanted to be the greatest Olympian in the world… and then so on. Come on, family get happy, smile, celebrate the success. Mumbai has some 1.5 CR  people, of which only a few are crowned champions every year.

This overhang of being dejected and un happy and unsatisfied is pretty stupid. It reeks of journey to self-destruction. Why would you sacrifice so much and then always remain unhappy? Why as a family can we not celebrate the joys in life. I know that as a swimmer, as Jispa asked me, shouldn’t I always strive for more, how can I be satisfied? Yes, we dissatisfied but be happy. There is difference between the two. Always strive for more, but be happy with your got. Savor what you got. Look at that trophy you won, longingly and caress it. Feel the joy, the pain and the achievement. It’s yours and no one can take that from you. We as parents must also realize this. One thing that I did as parent when Jispa swam, was never to ask for her timings and her positions and always be ok about her achievements. In my heart, I would jump in joy or be pained but I would never show it. I thought this is the best level of equanimity shown. It puts the least amount of pressure on the child. No real pressure of delivering. I think it worked as she doesn’t face pressure of winning from me, but I can say with candor that I think it also was disastrous as in, it gave us no joy in winning. I made my kid as cynical as me of winning. I am sorry. I was wrong. I screwed up. This trophy that Jispa won is a testament to my failure as a father. Today if I were to live up the life again, I don’t know what I should have done. Celebrated every competition no matter what the result? That’s not possible given the swim meets we have in a year. The alternative – celebrate every time we win a medal or give a better timing – wouldn’t that celebrate success and deride failure? That is what I did not want.

The unintended consequences of what we seek to achieve by how we behave is so damn irritating. I guess it was the best at that time. But we became such cynical jokers at the end of it all. I am sorry at myself for this. Celebrate the successes and celebrate the failures. Life is short, celebrate. That’s possibly the other option. The consequences of these would be something I would berate later, if I had gone on this path.

Parenting is thankless job. It works amazingly well for the first few years when your child is small innocent bundle and you can hold it close, tight to your heart and eat it up. But soon it gets tougher and tougher on you as the unintended consequences catch up. Possibly right ow I feel like a failure, possibly in a decade I will say that was the right thing to do. As I have always maintained, parenting is something we weren’t taught about. It is something we pick up as we get along. We try to avoid the mistakes our parents did and do new ones. Hence the evolution can easily stop as a skipped generation doesn’t learn from old mistakes. That’s why over the years this blog should be handy. Possibly it may not help Jispa as it may help her child (if she has one). Possibly it will help another young parent reflect on her own strengths and shortcomings. Possibly this introspection as it has helped me will help them be better parents (less likely) and better human beings (more likely).

Like I was telling someone – writing helps me clarify to myself on what I am and what I am about. It helps me slap myself or congratulate myself on the choices and decisions I make. It helps me like teaching – it helps me clear my mind and reinforce my beliefs. That in itself is a good thing. I started writing to leave behind a mark for my daughter to read, it became an indelible for me to be. The unintended consequences of so many things.

But yes, Jispa won the championship and the feeling will sink in later. Possibly after a few days, a few years, a few decades. It is an awesome moment. It is a big moment. It is an achievement to savor. It is something to celebrate. It was a little dream for me. My only other swim dream for Jispa is for her to break a record at any swim meet. Just once – I want her to break a record. She hasn’t done so yet. That’s my not so little dream from her swimming. A national medal? That would be cute as well. Even a relay medal. I would love that as well. But its ok. I am happy for her. I am happy that as a kid she has learnt to be fit and to achieve. She learnt pain and sacrifice. And she learnt a sport. That’s what I wanted her to do when I paid that membership fee after fighting with Jasmine. So, a parent I have to grow up and own up to this achievement and be proud. That all I wanted, I got much more. It’s a good thing that I can’t kick my own derrière, otherwise this deserved a much-needed red sore bum. But in the same breath, I deserve a small quiet pat on the back. I write this blog and I understand where I went wrong and I acknowledge it. This makes me smarter than most others. Only by acknowledgement can one be improved. I will try harder.

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no reason bonus video:

in longing for the tomato cheese toast sandwich

I miss having tomato cheese sandwiches. After I knew I was lactose intolerant, I dint miss not eating all the lactose rich foods. I have a craving for very few foods. I don’t miss, pizzas too much, nor ice creams, nor normal chocolates, nor rabdi or kulfi. What I end up missing at times is curd and at times buttermilk. Yes – the sweet buttermilk at Dadar. The one that my dad introduced me to. That was the awesome thing that I introduced Jispa to. There is this shop at Dadar west, very near the station (opposite nakshatra mall). It’s a nondescript place which only serves lassi. There is no board outside announcing the place. It probably grew by word of mouth and is at best 5 feet wide. At the entrance itself is the proprietor making lassi with a made to order contraption which is basically an old wooden style lassi churning device attached to an electric motor. There is room only for people to get in or get out in sequence, not simultaneously. The shop is around 20 to 25 feet long with narrow benches on both sides. And he serves only one thing – lassi – full or half. Typically, there will be a line outside his shop as one batch finishes their lassi. They come out and the other batch goes in. You go in and sit along the sides and wait for the server to come in with a massive tray with lassi glasses. Full or half. You choose and drink. Every glass will have a scoop of cream of curd on top of it. Thick sweet, creamy lassi, deeply India style. And on the way out, declare what you drank, pay and leave. I introduced this to Jispa and she loved it as well. I miss this. I am making a sad face right now. And I miss Tomato cheese toast. I love Tomato cheese toast sandwich. With some herbs in in.

Recently over the long weekend, I was helping Jasmine with some chores at Dadar. It was really hot and I took her with the car to finish the pending work. It’s one of those things that is a mighty bore to do alone. So, we parked the car somewhere and roamed around doing the chores. Then I took Jasmine to a place I knew from before which served some nice Misal Pav. Misal is the ultimate Maharashtrian dish and this road side eatery was good at it. After having some missal we were going back to the car when I saw some laal bhaji being sold. This is to is something that I saw some Maharashtrian friends of mine get for their lunch. I urged Jasmine to buy some and while she was buying, I saw that there was a restaurant at the side that seemed interesting. A very basic simple restaurant, non air conditioned and with a menu written in Marathi on black boards. It was serving interesting dishes that I had not even heard of. I told Jasmine that I was going in and checking it out. To cut a long story short, the restaurant was ‘Tambe Arogya Bhavan’ and served some of the best Maharashtrian food I have ever had.

The most amazing thing about this place is that I have passed this place upteen number of times. It is on the main road in Dadar and I have never ever even realized that this place exists. It has been under the radar and hidden from everyone, food critics, foodies and aficionados alike. It was a serendipitous discovery and a lovely cheap place to eat. I wrote about it on FB and tried to spread the message to whoever who cared to listen. It’s a place I would love to go to, again and again. Dadar trips are now going to be fun – taking people to this place and then to the lassi guy who is stone’s throw away.

But the story is not this – the story is how I am amazed at myself turning foodie. I was never a foodie. Food was simple to me – it’s something you eat and not something you go fancy over. Take anything and put cheese in it and voila – you are done.

Two things happened to me – first I realized that I was lactose intolerant. That one thing sent me on a trail of understanding food and the body and how we react to it, interact with it and live with it. And the second - I got a deeper understanding of the evolution of food and our food habits. A deeper understanding that has more anthropological roots in it. And it has been an eclectic journey. It has helped understand who I am and what I eat. It had helped me understand who others are and what they eat. And in the end, it has helped me what others will eat and hence what they will become.

I don’t know when and where and reading or listening to what not, did I realise that our food habits were dictated by world war 2. This is an interesting story. The fast and quick version of this is simple – Europe retained it culinary traditions through word war as the supply lines were relatively short and they eat from the farm lands and fresh food. US fought the war across the oceans and had huge supply lines. They are a large continent to start with. This ensured that any transport of food had to be processed and tinned. All tinning makes food mushy, slushy and easy to eat. After the war this industry was channelized for the people and that’s why you have such food. Over time as they exported culture and food to the world, we realized that this food is fast (hence fast food) to eat and gave us instant calories and protein – essential to survival. We developed a taste for it and slowly we started making all food easy to eat.

The most popular foods today in Mumbai are idlis, dosas, pastas, McD and margarita pizza. Basically nothing to chew. When I realized this, it changed my taste and my passion for food completely. Now, I look for joy in food when I go to eat. Sometimes we go to just eat. That’s filling your tummy. But some times, I love to go and eat for tasting, for feeling, for texture and for anthropology. To understand the culture and people behind the taste. What is it that makes us, us?

This has made me into an interesting foodie, and a food snob of sorts. I like to taste the food and analyse all of it. Not simple gobble it down. Keep it for a few moments in my mouth, understand why I enjoyed it or not, what is so interesting about it, what is the chef trying to do. Once I understood this, it made a better chef myself, as I treat friends with flavours and textures with my fun stuff on salad and deserts. It has become an enriching experience.

As Dharen said, you can write a book on hunger, but to really experience hunger, you have no option but to be hungry for a day. Being lactose intolerant made me miss my cheese and curd and ice cream, but it opened my palate like none other. It made me understand the role of food in my life, in our lives. It made me understand what it did to me. Today I understand what foods I like for lunch and what I like for dinner, I know what makes me play better and what doesn’t. How my energy levels move according to the food I eat. This has been an amazing enlightening condition. I look at all the so called gujju foodies and feel sorry for them. They are what I was. “I will eat it as long as you can cheese it’ is the gujju philosophy. Recently we went to a place called Spesos. It is a gujju orgasmic paradise. It had cheese on everything. That’s why all of the gujjus were in full force there. We went there and ordered for myself the only two things that were lactose free on the menu. By default, those were the south east Asian items. After my condition, this cuisine is the best for me. Authentic SE Asian cuisines are naturally lactose free and they have become the family haunt. In 30 minutes of having the food, I got severe bloating and a mild migraine. The jokers must have put some cream or something in the soup or gravy. Why else would the damn gujju eat there? Jokers. But hell – I just had to sleep through it. Luckily it was dinner time.

But still no complaints. People ask me all the time about my condition and feel sorry for me. I don’t think they need to. I feel happy for me. Some talk about cures available and some talk about tablets that allow you to eat the stuff. But I am happy. This has meant a healthier lifestyle, less sugar, less fat and by that logical consequence less salt. All of which is good.

But the knowledge that I gained thanks to this has also been amazing. The simplest of which being – you will find milk when you least expect it and you will find it missing where you expect it – tomato flavoured ready to cook and eat noodles have milk solids in them and Oreo cream biscuit doesn’t. People wonder. Especially when they think about it and ask – then what is the white thing in the Oreo. Well – that cream biscuit you are eating has no cream. It freaking hydrogenated vegetable oils. And that stuff is bad for you. Really bad for you.

Frozen desert that Walls sells masked as ice cream is also that – it doesn’t even legally qualify to be called ice cream, and that’s why recently an ice cream maker Amul came up with an ad that called it just that – NOT ICE CREAM. They took them to court.

People don’t realise why there is so much sugar, salt and fat in their diet. Neither did I, till I got affected by it. That’s a good thing. Such a beautiful cultural extravaganza from a stupid condition. And now thanks to me I am teaching Jispa to eat and understand. We started reading ingredients on wrappings and understanding their impact. We started understanding a little bit of good food. When we travel, certain restaurants come with very interesting foods and certain local places are true to their roots. It has become an interesting family discussion. Food food, glorious food. But not as a means to grow fat but as a means to understand one-self and ones roots. Because if you don’t know where you come from, you are not going to know where you are likely to go. Deep nah?

And yes – I still miss tomato cheese toast. But I think I am going to get some lactose free cheese from US (Jasmine’s brother) and I am going to savor it, without sharing it. Lactose free cheese? Yes – I figured that aged cheese is lactose free as the lactose is shed in the whey and then the process ensures that the lactose is already digested in the curing itself. See – shit you would never know till shit hits you man. And just yesterday, I was talking to another swim parent whose kid is lactose intolerant. I told them about the cheese which is certified as lactose free. He didn’t know that. The poor kid obviously didn’t have pizza, but now it could. Thanks to this information. This also came to me once when my fiend was having some cheese that he had bought for himself and he saw the wrapper that said ‘lactose free’. It’s crazy how the information spreads. I feel like starting a community of lactose intolerant people.

Such is the way of life. Knowledge doesn’t come by itself. It must have meaning to you in your life. It cannot be aimless. You have to find its purpose. Food now has purpose for me. The books I read on sport have purpose for me. What I understand in history has purpose for me. Because of this purpose I can understand it, appreciate it, apply and therefore have a greater passion for it. Purpose can come from anywhere and can help you, but I am not so sure that real knowledge can be gained without purpose. At least not for me. I lose interest and it wouldn’t seem to really help. That was the problem in school and is the problem with boring teachers. They may have had amazing expertise but the ones that I loved was the ones that connect that to my lives or inspired it as a story in my life. I loved those and hence that’s how I teach. My marketing class tries to connect stuff that happens to things that happen in my life and hopefully it tries to connect to things that will happen in their life as well. Then only will they listen and then only will they understand and that will make an impact. Not otherwise.