diligence and dedication

What is it to be a dad? I don’t know but being one does teach you a lot of things. Having patience for one. It can be extremely rewarding and frustrating at the same time and to live with these ups and downs is a part and parcel of being a dad. It compounds with the fact that parenting is a moving target as your child grows up every day. They respond differently and more importantly I as a parent, need to think differently. I have to approach each situation differently, every time it repeats or every new day.

It’s not an easy things and it’s not that it comes naturally. In fact the natural behavior would be to deteriorate your response with the frustration of repetition. At this point, I have to control my instincts and think deeper and reach for resilience from within. I am sure Jispa too needs serious resilience from within to deal with her parents as well. And this will only get tested again and again when she grows up and is independent and doesn’t require us for her growth or wellbeing.

Today morning as I was dropping Jispa to swimming for her morning swim and I reailsed that she had forgotten her flipper bag. Again. Oh dear. There was no point in scolding her or anything. She told me that she will simply borrow a fellow swimmers bag and continue. As I left her and went back home I couldn’t help thinking – Jispa reached her national glory thanks to Jasmine doggedness. We put her in swimming and then the program took over. Jasmine found her calling in Jispa’s program and supported her. We drove her to every swim meet, we sat in the background and fed her, we got her ready for school and dropped her, we cooked her special food and basically ferried her every where and got her to stick to her swimming program.

Left to her own, I don’t think the kid would have done it. Today as we have relaxed our oversight into her program she has slipped and how. She doesn’t train as hard, she bunks at will and we realize - she is not destined for pushing herself to achieve greatness. She is a good person. A nice toughish kind of kid but she is not the natural born self-motivated sportsperson who can continually achieve greatness by virtue of relentless unsupervised practice. She is not eklavya who can make a statue of her teacher and practice away. In Many ways she reminds me of me.

I think my dad would have said that I have never fulfilled my potential as a kid growing up. In sports or in studies. Procrastination was my thing and diligence was never it. It’s only when I grew up in life and when life kicked me in the backside that I realized the value of diligence and dedication. Anything that does not have it will not get achieved. And never to your satisfaction. I think Jispa achieved what she did in swimming was because Jasmine showed these two things in helping Jispa grow with the program. My job was diligence and dedication to Jasmine’s cause. It wasn’t my thing. Even today I tell Jispa, its ok, relax, live your life, have a childhood, and don’t bother training so hard now.

Jispa will grow up and understand these things. She is better than most other kids. I am sure. She can still manager her swimming and her studies and the simple fact that she continued to swim all these years, makes me convinced that she has it in her to grow. I am not criticizing her but making the difference between kids who are good (damn good) and kids who are great. Look at the current Indian captain. After breaking into the cricket team and the big league did her realize that he has to work even harder and train like crazy if he has to break into the all-time great lists. He was a chubby child and now he is a pinnacle of fitness and hard work. I was a lazy worker and now I put in 12 hours a day trying to get things done. It takes time to grow into what you want to do in life and when you get it, then you can go for it.

I am sure Jispa will be a great coach or a good teacher or an awesome worker. She should do well. She has a lovely disposition that she got from her mother, an understated ambition (mother again) and an ability to explain her thoughts (now that’s me). This is her and I am quite proud of her. She is a far better kid than I was at her age.

Just a few days ago we had this conversation on which subjects to choose and which to drop. I told her to screw career and follow what you love. Finally she chose basis the best teachers she would get. That’s a smart choice. All subjects are good. It’s the teacher who makes us love a subject. Now she chose physics on the basis of the teacher and immediately she loves it. That’s a great choice kid. Connect to people and you will always be rewarded. Pick people you love and work with them. Then it’s always easier to handle every issue that comes your way.

urban jungles

I just finished a holiday In Singapore. The efficiency of the city continues to amaze me. They run their daily lives with such discipline and efficiency. No jay walking, no litter, no pollution.  A city that is built by its citizens and is kept clean and spotless. It made me think, that the bets and the only way to get people out of poverty is proper urban planning.

Cities are the bedrock of modern society. We can wish as much for the village in the gandhian principal of “India living in its villages” but the fact remains that cities are just far more efficient means for community living. Density allows for access to advancement in basic civic services. Only in a huge bustling metropolis can you have the best of roads, transport, hospitals, schools, parks, malls, primary healthcare, sanitation, sewage etc. Large communities living together can together demand and make viable an efficient system or modern living. Cities improve the lives of people and help them compete, make money, innovate, distribute, access finance etc. These just become unviable when you have villages with a few and far dispersed population. The access costs of all these services makes it impossible.

Roads in a cities are demanded are a right and roads in a village are given as a favor. That in itself is a key point of difference in itself. The problem is the not fact that people are slowly moving to the cities in search for employment and opportunities. We cannot lament over it and come up with bird brain nazique ideas to stop it. People are coming because it is simply more efficient to live in a city.  The problem as Singapore has shown is simply urban planning (or failure of it thereof). Improvement in people’s lives and alleviation of poverty can simply be handled by proper urban planning and administration. If we give people proper amenities and charge them for it and create an infrastructure that works for its people then people will find a way to get themselves out of poverty and live meaningful lives.

We were staying at a friend’s place which overlooked a park. Next to the park was the government housing complex. The complex was clean and neat and well kept, unlike the ones in Mumbai which become a hot bed for crime. This complex had an open gym where the government had kept exercise equipment which basically was designed as outdoor equipment in which the design was such that it used body weight as resistance. They were lovely and when I tried them I realized that they could actually be sued as a great exercise tool. You just have to substitute the heavy lifting with extra reps. It was awesome.

The best part was that no matter when I saw the park and the equipment, there were always some people using it and exercising. It was awesome. I saw people exercising in the morning, in the afternoon under the blazing sun and night (even late night). This is crazy. The oldies outnumbered the young ones, but it seems that entire Singapore is into fitness as a culture. The frame work provided by the urban planners takes this into account. The gardens and gym equipment is designed to allow you to use it. It was a crazy revelation. Especially the oldies were so much into it. One thing I saw across Singapore were a large number of oldies working.

This made me think. Why would the oldies work? When you speak to people about Singapore, they all love it but they all complain that it’s become expensive to live in Singapore. My view was that possibly these oldies who I see working everywhere – some as waiters, cleaners, taxi drivers etc, were possibly working as they need to support themselves as they grow older. Possibly there is a huge cost of medical and living and lifestyle maintenance that is difficult to keep up to. What was it? In the second half of the trip I was asking everyone – why are the old people working? Whats wrong in the system?

The answer I kept getting is that they are working as they want to. Simple. What I understood is that they have money and health care is already subsidized for them and they have contributed to the health care while they were working. Also their retirement plan was worked out for them while they earned their salaries. Hence it’s not that they work to eat or live. They work as they are able bodied and they want to work. Otherwise they will sit at home and rot. It’s the same reason they remain fit. They are independent people and like to preserve their independent lives and be fit. Their great leader set an example for them and worked till he died. They see no wrong in doing the same. There is great dignity of labor and hence lots of job are available for them and they work. One taxi driver told me, while I was hurrying to see the sunset from tourist spot that the best sun set he saw was in japan and the best sun rise was in Egypt. Singapore ‘no good’ for sunset views. He was right. But the point is that he is not the normal bottom of the pyramid taxi driver. The old man was working because he wanted to and he had enough money. The city took care of them.

I was telling Jasmine that look at the Singapore model. Good urban planning has allowed so many things to work rightly. How people move, commute, live, enjoy and work. They get themselves out of poverty and crime. You give people homes and they live well. You create a disciplined environment and they live with it. So many poverty alleviation techniques are available from teaching people livelihoods, education, food and even direct cash transfer. I have a theory that all of it pales in comparison to the simple act of good urban planning and enforcing of community discipline. Density will allow the maximum impact in small areas and allow for a mass upward movement of people. If someone just sets up an independent urban planning center and in which they have templates and studies for planning and development which are free for people to access and use and ask questions of their politicians, then a massive change could be affected. They could, let’s say give out simple thumb rules for what a km of rail line could cost , or a typical walkway or methods for road construction to be followed and make these open source. Then bids of these would become transparent.

This center simply explained how cities should function, how policing can function, how transport can be built and lay out the best learnings across the world then, my belief is that the world will become a significantly better place. Cities are not yet congested. They are just simply badly planed and managed. They generate enough money for investments, but are simply corrupt with no base ready for comparison and criticism. Cities can take in even more people, with even larger sky scrapers being built and inhabited efficiently.

Cities are the way to uplifting people from despair and hunger and poverty. Urban planning will allow it. Efficient and effective way to help people live better lives. That was my big Singapore learning.

PS – the best part of the trip – going to a trampoline gym and jumping away with Jispa. It was seriously so much fun.

revolution

Over the weekend, one evening we went to the Chembur house to check on the progress made. After which Jasmine, Jispa and me went for a walk around the place. After staying for 11 years in the relative obscurity of Bhakti Park, where there is nothing, no civilization for 5 kms around, Chembur feels very different. We walked around to find medical shops, many medical shops, restaurants, sugar cane juice sellers, shops selling clothes, underwear, mobiles, mobile repair centres, hotels, sports shops, vegetable markets, everything within walking distance of the home.

We are still coming to grips with this change in paradigm. Everything is so close. We have grown as a family living in Bhakti Park. The only thing that is going for Bhakti Park is that it has a massive Imax theatre in its vicinity. Rest, many years ago we had to buy a second car  to ensure that Jasmine and me could both get anywhere. I distinctly remember struggling to get a taxi in the morning to drop Jispa at her bus stop. Of course the place has improved but still, the basics of modern urban dense living, which we take for granted is still missing from the place.

I took them walking along showing them the place and getting them to understand the map. Where is which shop, where are the markets and where all can you go for basic services? Our house is very close to the station and that’s why access to all the services at a stone’s throw is possible. And being set inside from the main street, the place is also quiet and just about 100 meters away from the hustle. All in all its an experience.

While walking around we almost reached Ghatkopar and we then turned back. One of things that I think I have missed while I was in Bhakti Park was the ability to walk around. And once I did walk around in Chembur, I realized what had happened to Mumbai. It’s become a polluted shitty place. In the last ten years, the pollution levels have gone through the roof. In and around my place in Chembur was still bearable, but moment you hit a slightly more busy road the pollution hits your face. Now I realized why I probably will prefer a mall. You get off from your house, get into an AC car and get into the Ac mall. You live the cocoon of air conditioning with filters on. You don’t feel the pollution. That is to be felt by the poor and the voiceless. I really think that the poor in India have been shortchanged by Democracy.

The pollution is really bad, the trains are crowded, the bus service erratic, the pollution levels dismal, and the broadly – they will stay in the same dirty quarters with no real access to sanitation. It a freaking amazing thing that civil war hasn’t yet started in the city. Yes, all this while walking around a city with idle time on hand. How can so much inequality survive? Raising taxes and giving sops to the poor is not the answer. Having good governance at a city level is the right answer. Giving homes to people to stay respectfully, giving them commute that is efficient and works for them, cleaning up the air, water etc; these are answers. They don’t require more taxes, more sops; they require an iron will. They don’t require more laws, they require more follow up on the existing laws. Post-independence the generation just rotted and created a system that we are now going to bear. If that generation of governance created a good model, then we would have been able to live better. One man in Singapore changed the lives of its people in one generation. One generation.

Mumbai collects enough taxes that it need not even dip into reserves. Most of the budgetary outlaw remains unutilized. I talk to different people to realize that staying in Mumbai is prohibitively expensive. There is enough land stuck in government land banks and red tape. If only…

But its ok – let’s all sit in our ac environment and relax at ease. I am going to stay on the 13^th floor, far away from the noise the street generates, especially the rickshaws. I have ACs in all rooms. A remote switch away. I have applied for membership in the gymkhana next door. So now government land that was given away for promotion of sporting culture is enjoyed by an elite few who take membership to it at exorbitant rates. We will shut out normal people from enjoying these services. We have rich fat kids playing sports in a closed isolated loop amongst themselves, forgetting that the point of a facility is that it be used. We will keep the facility unused during off hours, rather than promote the sport for more people to come and play, raising the standards for everyone. No.

We like staying in our secluded ac environments. I have built the perfect nest for Jispa. The perfect nest. Who am I to complain? I made most of my money by dancing at the temple of capitalism – in a stock broking firm within a privately owned bank. Why should I lecture to anyone on this? Well I am not… I am writing a private blog available only to specific people who know. Someday the socialist in me will meet the capitalist in me and then I want singularity to happen. That answer is in between these two views without a thirst for power. Which means – impossible.

But hell, I am still 42. There is time for me in this world. Probably when I retire, I can busy myself with public life. Doing things that are right for the society. Trying to uplift people the right way; by empowering them to lift themselves out. But for now, that is a pipe dream. Just a good thought that comes from the heart. Heart is normally never the problem. It always is the mind and the intention that is an issue. I hope that I will be able to do good work in life. I hope I will be able to contribute more to society in a way that’s lasting. Possibly that is my way of telling myself that I am a great guy and that my current rate of shittyness is just an aberration where I have temporarily sold my soul to fund my immediate survival. Heart in heart – this is what I choose as important. And hence society service is not on my mind. Full stop. I have forgotten the socialism ideals or even the stupid left leaning ideals of youth.

Only Capitalism and private enterprise can lift masses of people out of poverty. Nothing else. So sitting in office and working at the capitalist temples is actually a service to mankind. While doing so a very simple thing of caring deeply for consumers, allowing them to choose the right products and treating your vendors and colleagues fairly is good enough society work. At home, following basic society rules and working harmoniously with all is service to society. Simple human interactions and work done with simple ideals of collective good that appeal to selfish interests – that is how civil society progresses.

Also when the time comes and the conditions manifest themselves in a way that you will find yourself in a situation where you will raise your hand, raise your body and defy odds and change or refuse to accept what is present. Revolution rarely comes from a rebel looking for it. It comes from unlikely simple people doing simple things because that’s what they think is right. This then sets them up on a path to doing bigger and better things for everyone.

So my revolution will come someday. I always wanted to be a fire brand revolutionary. It’s funny when I look back at myself. Within my confines of my office desk, I show signs of this red (or orange or green) bandana wearing bearded fire breathing revolutionary. Pushing through agendas, others find difficult to see, digest or swallow. That’s my little victory in the sellout. Little joy in massive narrow bouts of aggression. I don’t know if this aggression will kill me, but it’s helped me live.

deep

“Dad” asked the voice on the other end. “ya?”. “Dad can I go to the NSCI holi.”  “whats that” I ask? “Siddhant (her cousin) is calling the entire gang (the one that went diving together) for Holi at NSCI club. It’s a thing, and can I go?”. Err. Permit where you can and protect where you must is the motto. I am sure Jasmine would have told her to ask dad so shooing her off by saying ask mom is also not going to work. Holi – a bunch of drunken revelers with colors etc, is not exactly it. “no” I answer. Then I proceed to explain my point of view “no, because first I don’t your cousin is up to any good. Second – people drink and play holi. Three – it’s the place where most eve teasing happens. Four – I don’t really know you gang to send you here. Five…”. “Dad..Dad.. relax. Stop. I didn’t want to go in any case. It’s ok. I had said no but my friends were insisting”. “bastard, so you just wanted me to say no so that you have an excuse to say no?”. “ya kind of”. “ok.

Yes I did use the expletive and yes… parents are not meant for too much meaning. They are meant for simply being there while your kid derives meaning from your presence. 

I just said some deep shit, that mean nothing.

ramble in the morning

Writing is a bloody habit and a skill. I feel that the days I have written my blog regularly, I have written better and the days that I have just lost touch – I have, err… lost touch. I have nothing much to write about. I miss the 2009 days, when I wrote a blog for every working day that I had. It was a particularly fecund time for the blog and also for my mind. I had nothing to do in office but I had loads to read. I think some of that quite dramatically impacted me in a way. I realized that even if there is no work, I can invent work and figure out a way to make life much more productive.

Right now where I have joined, I can still decide to just sit down and relax and let time and tide work its way. I can relax and not push the pedal on anything. But I hate that. I don’t think that defines me. I am defined by the work I like to do and the knowledge I gain. I want to push the people under me to reach their levels of work that they did not think possible. I want to push hard. I don’t know why I am doing this. This is a recipe for disaster, frustration and anger. But I like doing it.

I think over a period of time, I have understood what makes me happy and what drives me. I like this in me. So I guess it’s pretty stupid to stop this. But on the other hand I am 42 years old. So I understand these things about me. I think I have learnt to know that my push is my problem. I can push but people can only take so much. I have the ability today to sit behind as well and relax and chill knowing that things will happen at their own pace. This is what the prime example of opposites reconciling is.

I push but I wait. I demand but don’t expect. I lead but I also allow you to float away. The concept of opposites reconciling is something that only age can teach. Today I understand far more about it that I thought at the start. It is more profound than ever to me. We are a bundle of contradictions. So many times I see people lie, but I don’t think they do it. I think they are merely telling the different truth, again, and this time it’s different.

Sometimes people love me and then the next day they won’t. What’s the truth? Hah! There is none. I have argued much about this in my past blogs. Opposites reconciling is also a case of truth and lies reconciling. It’s also a case of emotions reconciling. An old friend reached out to me after a long time. We were practically out of touch. Her mother passed away. I connected with her and felt for her, but I don’t really feel for her. Move on. Another friend connected with me – she was frustrated with her job. I felt for her, but I don’t feel for her. Another friend…. You know the drift…

In both cases I was warm, genuinely so. This is how emotions are when you are older I guess. You retain the warmth in your heart but you don’t let it fool your brain in wondering if you really care. I think I really care for no one really. Yes I care about my daughter and wife, more so than anything else in the world. But sometimes I wonder if I have become more cynical and hardened over a period of time.

Yesterday for brief time in the night the electricity went out. In her sleep (she didn’t remember it in the morning) Jispa came to our room and asked if the electricity went out, and that it was hot. Jasmine asked to sleep with us, as we have a net window and it was relatively cooler. As Jispa slept, Jasmine fanned her with a newspaper. That is motherly love, untouched by father’s world weary cynicism. I told her not to, but she still did it. Then I took on the newspaper and fanned Jispa. Not because of my love for Jispa, but because I wanted to give Jasmine’s hand some rest. Dumb ass.

Was this love or was this sharing the burden of parenting or sharing the stupidity of an old friend. I freaking don’t know. All I know was that Jasmine’s action had more love than mine.  My thinking for this is that she is yet untouched by the world or she is refusing to be touched by the world. More the former. I think if Jasmine would have worked in corporate life, then she too would have been worldly cynical. But she is unscathed. That’s why I take extra care of her. That’s why sometimes, I let her even face some of the shit – there, realise that it’s stupid, to love unconditionally or give unconditionally. Slowly I have seen her also harden with the ways of the world. So far she has managed a bunch of friends who are loyal to her, by being who is. That’s a happy cocoon to have. I draw from her well of goodness. I wouldn’t have ever been able to have these friends on my own.

Coming to which – I am looking forward to my family Singapore holiday. We are going there for a few reasons – 1 – its free stay. My friend (ex colleague) has settled there and we get free stay. But more importantly – Jasmine and I wanted a nice stress free holiday. I have been to Singapore three times and with family – once. It’s a stress free city. We know the city and all he attractions. There is no rush to complete them all and see them all. We can do it at our own pace and time. The public transport runs like a breeze and is predictable to a fault. There is very low crime and everyone is honest. Jispa can do things on her own there. What more do we want? No stress, foreign, happy vacation. I want that.

Also we are almost broke doing up our new home. We have no money for a large expensive vacation. By the time it’s done, I am going to be so broke. But I see that as an insurance against the vagaries of life. Now that it will be done, there will be less stress on me. It’s a home built for a hopefully a longer period of time. And a home that should last me till retirement. I never knew that at 42 one talks about retiring. But age does that to you. I am pretty aggressive for an old man… hehehe… opposites reconciling.

Last note – a blog that I was writing and didn’t bother to publish – I have a recurring nightmare that I can’t run to catch a train, my legs freeze. With my knee problem, I see that as a reality. While taking part in the parent’s race, this time, I felt that my legs froze and couldn’t go faster. They went slower than they could. I was worried about the knee popping out again. Man… it’s scary to see yourself live your nightmare in some way. I hate it. But I live with it. It’s a big bad dream come true. Arrggghhh.

Free irrelevant song

fly buy nostalgia dubai

33 years is a long time. Especially when you are 42.

When we left Dubai for Mumbai it was such a harrowing experience. From a large well protected cocoon to a crazy place of nothing. I wondered if I would ever go back and if ever on what terms. Would I get a job to live back there or visit as a tourist or for any other reason? I remember air travel was such a luxury and the cost of the tickets extremely prohibitive. We never again went by air travel within the country itself, forget going out of the country. It was something that never happened.

Over the years, definitely air travel became more affordable. If I remember right, the prices have fundamentally remained at the same absolute rate even after twenty-thirty years making the trip very affordable, but somehow Dubai always eluded me. With the markets doing well and I am back at my old broking company, when the offsite was announced for Dubai, I smiled to myself. I going home after 33 years. Wow. I was a little 9 year old boy when left Dubai for India. Now I would be going back on official business as a senior executive. Hah!

I am not going to talk about how Dubai has changed. Of course it has. It’s got shit load of wealth and it’s a city that decided to make its income from tourism and construction. Of course it a mad place. Its got some crazy large structures with massive buildings. In fact it’s got the tallest building in the world on top a massive mall. Dubai super sizes everything. Of course it’s changed and I couldn’t recognize anything on the way to the hotel till I saw the World trade Centre building. It was the building that was the tallest at its time. I remember going there with family just to see the building and having an outing around it. We posed for photos around the place. It was 30 odd stories high. Now that building looks like a pygmy with 60 storied buildings everywhere, making me lose a sense of perspective.

We shopped and hopped around Dubai till we had a chance to do a desert safari in the big Toyota SUVs. Those guys took us on the dunes, or as they say, bashing the dunes and skid on them etc. It was fun till one of the cars had a bit of tyre trouble and all the cars just had to park around to help him, in the idle of the desert. That’s when eth real fun started. People climbed on top of the dunes to pose for photos and jump around. That’s when I remembered my childhood. I was on top and the guys were climbing up when I saw this sweet round colleague of mine trying to climb up. I ran down towards him and took him to the ground. Then I ran after another and threw him down. Ad they posed for photos I threw a few more. Soon a few more joined in and it was complete chaos and I felt like a 6 year old all over again. Going up the sand dunes and rolling down with someone. We were full of sand and it was crazy ass fun. The guys who joined in had a whale of a time as well. I grew up to this – playing with gay abandon in the sand or rush into the water in the beach. That’s awesome fun.

Before coming back, I got a chance to catch with an old friend from Dubai. Our families were the best of friends and we grew up together while we were there. I asked him, if he could take me to my old house in Diera. He asked his dad for the exact directions and as we were reaching there, we were just looking around my building. It was a distinctive building as I remember that we had a long corner balcony connecting all the rooms. As my friend showed me the police station which I knew was nearby, I told him take a right here and there – that’s it. That’s my building.

After 33 years you get to see your home which gave you so much joy and fun and pride. It was a nice sweet quiet emotional moment for me. It was a large house with two bedrooms, a dining room, two halls and a kitchen. And the long balcony. We were on the third floor and seeing it was something special. Who knew under what circumstances one would have seen the house. It looked smaller than what I had memories of and the distances across the road seemed small. It’s because I was only a tiny boy of 9 and everything in perspective would have been big. Now it looks smaller.

As we were there all the memories kept flooding back. Three kids in our bedroom. In our respective beds jumping and playing. Running in the hall and balcony. Dad vacuuming the carpet on Sundays. Keeping the AC on every day and running around. Playing cricket in the car parking lot and playing cricket eth Pakistani boys who made a ball out of wrapping an induction tape around itself. I so wanted to go up and see the place. It’s a good thing we didn’t have time.

BTW – Jispa asked for stroop waffles and Pofaki from Dubai. She never asks for much and so for her I got 72 Stroopwaffles and 25 packs of Pofaki. Jasmine thought that I was over doing it. Hah! Of course. I am  dad. It’s my job to over do it.

what next

It’s funny how I am seeing myself age. Life priorities change. Your vision for the future changes. You start thinking about surviving peacefully as opposed to do lots of crazy things. It’s amusing for me to see how my mental model is changing as I grow older. When I shifted into this current house 10 years ago I had limited budget and lots of dreams and a world view that said – we will figure. Right now let’s focus on what’s important and build that.

So thanks to the small family that we were (we still are, I guess), we created a small house. We had almost no furniture and two cupboards and one bed. We spent the most, 60 thousand bucks, on the kitchen and made a small house for the small aspirations that we had. The idea was simple, we will figure as we go along the way. Slowly as we progressed as family, we did more renovations in the house. We got it painted, we added a dining table, a TV, we extended the house a bit, we got arm chairs and more cupboards. It was a lovely beautiful experience in building the home over ten years. I would give that up for anything. I really remember how small and cute and minimal the house was.

When we had money we bought a gymkhana membership. That too was bought with a sole intention of growing up with the gymkhana life with Jispa. She would do something, like swimming or badminton or tennis or something. It was an important and significant purchase for us.

Now after 11 years, as old as this blog, we have decided to move to our new Chembur house. This is a two bedroom kitchen and this is being done with a different mindset. Now we are doing up the house with a lot of focus on how it will be the same for a long time to come. We don’t have the attitude that we will figure. Let’s move into a nice home with all the amenities and the furniture sorted. So let’s have all cupboards, let’s have Jispa’s room sorted, let’s have the hall sorted, lets buy the right appliances, everything. Now the focus is not on the journey but to be that the destination has arrived.

I realize that at 42, possibly, just possibly, this is the house that I am likely to retire in and die in. I will not be able to remodel this again and again. Most of what we want should be done and made. So we are using good carpentry and good material for the home. Things that should last us for a long time. Now is the time that we are not looking for change but for permanence. So now what all can I invest in so that it will last a long time.

Next to the Chembur house is a gymkhana – Chembur Gymkahana. Jasmine and I were discussing the gymkhana membership and I urged her to come with me and see it. We liked what we saw and we saw that this looked affordable. But we have one membership, didn’t we? My argument to her is simple. We are likely to retire here as empty nesters when Jispa goes away. We are going to be oldies with little to do and lots of time and less income generating capacity. What will you do then? You will go to the gym and walk, go for swim, try and play a game or two and sit with your friends in a gymkhana. I am not even sure as we grow older if we will have the ability to drive up to Matunga gym and worse, you don’t want to waste money going there. I don’t know. But when you have this gymkhana sitting right here waiting for you to just hop inside, then that’s the ideal thing for the idle oldie.

Possibly when you are retired gymkhana politics or service, handling the affairs of the gymkhana is also something that you can do. Retired people work best as secretaries of housing societies and Gymkhanas where they spend their time doing honorary service, feel important and spend their time. It requires experience tact and time, which is what an old person would have. Hah. So we are now considering buying the membership for no other reason except – old age.

It’s a far cry from the action oriented unbrindled optimism of ten years back. Want to do something, want to live for the present, want to figure things out as they come. Now it’s a way to do least harm. I play with my knee in mind, with my back in mind, with a simple thing that tells me to manage myself or I going to be in trouble. I remember that my dad was only 45 years old when he got his first heart attack. I am 42. My immediate next goal – survive the next 3 years without too many issues. The fun bit of marrying early is that by the time I am 45, my daughter will be 18. I was 10 when my dad got his first attack. Hopefully first milestone will pass soon enough, without too much stress.

So that’s my ikigai for now – I am trying to create my ikigai when I won’t have any ikigais. That’s an interesting new time for me. Lets see.

joy

When we joined the gymkhana first we wanted Jispa to learn a sport properly. The one we honed in thanks to the timings etc was badminton. We also put her in swimming just to get her to learn it as a life skill. She was doing well in badminton as well when she got promoted first in the swimming batch and that decided her (till now) sports career.

But that’s not the point I am making. I remember one of the things that they made Jispa do was run up and run backwards on the court. Just run up and back. Simple. Get on your toes and run up and backwards. That’s a drill. Drills are important in sport training. They help you develop specific muscles and the build muscle memory. Then on the court it’s a second nature and replication of the same.

I have been playing badminton for long and all of it is self-taught. Looking at what the others do and thinking and trying to improve my game. It has reached a reasonable level but is now obviously plateauing. You end up playing with the same people again and again and then you aren’t able to develop your game. You have to play with multiple players in multiple settings to get an all-round feel to your game.

On the side of the court is a poster with the Indian legend Gopichand with different poses and explaining how to hit different shots. For the overhead smash one thing that I noticed that it required you to get behind the shuttle in a way that the shuttle is just ahead of you and you can then smash it right. It was interesting. I started trying to do that and it’s right, the shuttle then just flew off the racket in a powerful hard smash. That’s when I knew what I was doing wrong. I was being lazy. I was just getting back enough to get to the shuttle to hit it back not enough to get behind it. Just a step more… or possibly half a step more. That was the difficult one. It didn’t come naturally. That’s when I remembered Jispa’s drills- run up and run back. That’s the trick. Keep running back. I forced myself to run back a little more than normal. Again and again. And again. The smashes started going. It’s just a simple thing.

That’s the great thing about drills. Drills help you get the muscle memory right and get you to do the right thing immediately without effort in the match. I am amazed how simple it really is and with a little extra effort the game becomes much more enjoyable. Lovely.

These small efforts give me tons of meaning. I think these are cute things that help me get past what otherwise would be a mundane life. Our experiences around us make us who we are. We can go by thinking about the same old routine and get bored and exasperated by the predictability of it or we can get small joys in knowing that they can be improved or there is joy in the repeatability of it all.

Will I be a cynic with a mid-life crises when I tell you that don’t chase some great joy in life? Great joys are few and far in your life. My child being born was a great freaking joy. Falling in love with jasmine was a great freaking joy. Seeing my daughter win a race was great freaking joy. Seeing her lead the sports day oath was great freaking joy. But these come a few times in a life time. Rest are all small joys. Talking to her on various topics. Ganging up with her and making fun of Jasmine. Making the world’s best Paneer bhurji for breakfast for Jispa along with a coffee cup with oodles of cream is a cute joy. Running like crazy across the court and picking up the shuttle inches from the ground to take it across the net for a winner is acute joy. Giving a tough fight to the opponents in spite of being a weak team is a cute joy. Solving a puzzle with Jasmine or figuring out a product with her is a cute joy. Going to starbucks and ordering a pour over with milk and then asking for extra cup and some soy milk so as to get two for the price of one is cute joy. Writing this blog and posting it is cute joy. Buying a new pair of shoes is cute joy. Having a whack a mole fight with Jasmine with me being eth beaten mole is cute joy. Giving Jispa my old night suit t-shirt and then getting her ear lobe to kiss is cute joy. Fighting with Jispa over who gives the cutest nose kiss to Jasmine while she struggles to cover her nose in protest is cute joy. Talking to the trainee sitting next to you in office and giving gyan is cute joy. Rolling a tissue paper into a pointed rocket so that you stuff it inside your ear to get the last bit of water out of your ear after swimming is cute joy. Sharing your reading glasses with Jasmine while we oldies struggle to read a menu is cute joy. Putting cold cream on Jasmine’s legs or getting her to put cream on my back is cute joy. Giving Jispa a massage after a particularly tough works out in spite of you having a particularly bad day at work is cute joy. Giving a coworker a hug for no reason and not saying anything is cute joy. Peeling an apple without breaking the skin, in one straight flow is cute joy. Sitting in the pot and having one hell of a good download is cute joy. Finding a new restaurant that serves you awesome vegan dishes is cute joy. Meeting an old student who remembers you and tells you that you were the best is cute joy. Having a young friend tell you about their ups and downs and mental state just so that you know… is cute joy. Having a cool chat with your daughter’s class mates and just chilling around is cute joy. Connecting to a barista at Starbucks and hi fiving them when you go the next time, is a cute joy.

Beat all these bare cuteness of life.

who is to blame?

Yesterday as an eventful day.

I got up reluctantly to go play badminton. I like playing but I also realsie that if I don’t get enough seep I should be sleeping nd not playing sport. I think sacrificing sleep and going for fitness is a recepie for disaster. So I always try and get my sleep first and play later. But hell, Jispa also takes the opportunity to go to the gym when I go for badminton. Those are the alternate days on which they don’thave their swim and so it works out really well.

I took her to the gymkhana and suddenly while stepping out of the car she was in severe pain. What happened? She jammed the door on herself. Huh? Ya. Only Jispa can do that. She jammed the car close on her own finger. Oh dear, it was bad and the finger was blue. We ran up to the ice machine and got her finger in a glass full of ice. Now the eternal question – should I fuss over her and take her home or should I play the game while she waits on the sidelines with her finger.

The father in me wanted to play the gaem but the husband in me knew, that would be trouble when I get home. Jasmine would have fired me for letting her daughter hang around in pain while I played badminton. I told Jispa that we can go home. She was ok to let me play but still, I have been more years a husband than a father. I have been trained well on what to do. I went back.

In the afternoon another incident happened. I got free lunch at the restaurant SodaBottleOpenerwala. Yup. That is a name of restaurant. It serves Parsi cuisine. I called up Jasmine and told her – “you know there is good news. I got free lunch today”. “Why” she asked. Err… “That’s the bad news.”. She then guessed “they served you lactose food”. “no, Because they served me prawn curry”. “and you ate it?”. “Yes” I replied. “I ordered for the veg Parsi curry and the waiter got the curry. I started eating it and I was thinking about the fact that it has no vegetables but only chewy soya bullets. (I am still cringing). I even offered it to my friend who is also a vegetarian and she also ate it thinking its soya. Then I saw the distinctive shape of the prawn and I asked the waiter – what is this? He looked at it and pat came the reply – its prawns. And then he freezes for a second and looks at me and says – you ordered veg. Then he runs into the kitchen and comes back and tells me that I had ordered veg but the cook screwed up and he is getting the manager. The manager came and apologized.”

Ok. I ate what I thought was an ugly prawn dish. I was holding my head in my hand. What would my reaction be? Should I scream and shout? Should I break his head, should I demand a free meal... for life? Should I throw a fit? I just looked at my friend and we looked at each other and were wondering what to do. I simply told him, that go away for a minute and I just took stock of all the thoughts that were racing in my mind. Ok. I had the prawns. It’s not that I have a huge issue with non veg. I have no religion that went kaput, I had no belief that were altered. It’s ok. It’s a human mistake. It’s just that prawns look yucky and they feel yucky to eat. It’s a full body that went inside my mouth and I can feel the crunchy chewy feeling.

So I simply called the guy and asked him to take the food away. He wanted to replace the food. I was in no mood to eat anything else. I asked for fresh lime to wash the feeling. Hahah… now that I say it, fresh lime juice, sweet and salty, less sweet is my ganga jal which washed away the sins of eating it. Haha. What to do with the waiter. Its human error. Can really fault him for this. That’s why some of my friends and their parents who have huge issues eating non veg even accidently don’t go to the places that serve non veg. that’s why they go to vegetarian only restaurants.

In Mumbai there is a huge market for veg only places and the same is replicated across India. Veg only is a big thing that is extremely important to the vegetarians. Such risks are something they are not happy taking. So now when I look at them and wonder and ask them – why… I know the answer. It’s a question of risk which is unacceptable. Like I was explaining to my friends in office. Its ok to get this once in a while. I go to non veg joints and order veg food. I get the pleasure of eating at different places. In all these years it’s only normal and very very statistically probable that I would get one instance of non veg in error. The world doesn’t work with six sigma efficiency, which also allows of 3.4 defects per million. And with India having 1.3 billion people and also many trying to be vegetarian and a subset of them eating veg at non veg places, the odds are that you will get prawns in your lifetime. Now that I got it and the waiter and the manager as well the cook skipped a heartbeat, they will be more careful the next time – the follow up odds of them screwing up are lesser and then will have to wait for one more million people to eat from their hands for another 3.4 errros to creep in – that is if they are at 6 sigma.

If they are working at less then, more will happen. So why get angry at them. They were only trying to do their job. Possibly the cook needs glasses and is not rich enough or educated enough to get them. Possibly the waiter should be trained for checking the food against the order. Possibly the manager must make checklist of the food every time. The management must constantly train for this and every time this happens a root cause analysis must be done and the process must be fixed. Possibly all of this must happen and I am 100% sure that none of this happens and yet I eat… continue to eat here. And hence IT IS ME WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE CONSEQUENCES. Why should I then scold the guy? Why?

what we align to

Religion is always an interesting subject. I have had a lot of time to think about this. It is a contentious topic. And if you have followed the blog in past years you would have realized that I have recently turned a complete atheist. But it difficult for me to completely be a 100% atheist as I grew up fairly religious and I can’t say that I have had a life untested by faith. Jispa is unique in that way is that she is going to grow up untested till she decides from her own free will to test faith.

By questioning religion openly I am sure I will rub a lot of people the wrong way. It is not the right thing to do in parties, conversations and discussions. People see atheists as anarchists that are dangerous. If you add the ability to have a cool well thought of and articulate debate to this, you have a really potent and combustible mixture. In India for sure, we don’t have this ability in a lot of people. We see faith as omnipresent and absence of which as unhuman. And if I don’t see you as human, possibly then the rights of mankind don’t apply in dealing with you and hence… I know, this is dramatic but this is in many ways a reaction that is immediate and predictable (predictably irrational) and is something I have seen again and again. But I can understand this. Religion is much more to others than what I see it for.

Ever since I have started questioning my faith, I have started questioning (or pondering about) the need for faith. It’s easy to say that faith is a useless emotion that pervades the mind of the weak. Even if I take that stand it is not correct for me to think of the same for people who have started religion. There is knowledge, philosophy and life lessons in religion. That cannot be discounted. Those who have founded religions or even set the path for propagating it are extremely intelligent and enlightened beings. Some who benefit from it are also smart and extremely manipulative people. So it is not a kingdom of foolishness founded by fools. There is some truth and merit in the institution of religion which must be seen and the surface scratched to gleam some insight.

After much thought I have come to this world view for now - Religion in my view now is not about God and his ability to run you but is about the ability for civil society to organize itself around a set of shared values. Wow that sounds pretty deep. Even I am impressed by own analysis. I think a lot of intellectuals in the past tried their hand at creating a civil society. They must have realized that society can only work in harmony if there are a bunch of rules coded that everyone follows. Rules can be enforced to a limit. There are so many invisible rules that work as a general understanding as opposed to an enforced by rule of law. Being kind and benevolent can only be a general understanding not enforced by law.

SO the elder would have figured that this order to be maintained has to be in a manner that is ingrained from birth. A simple set of guidelines duly imbibed in the population. These guidelines have be met even when no one is looking or in a situation where no one can prove ones act of moral departure. These rules can work only when they are enforced by a centrail all knowing allpowerful, omnipresent authority – GOD. He who can see all that no one can, he who instills fear into your hearts when you do wrong, he who has the power to forgive you or the power over your destiny. It can only be enforced by HIM. That’s why even forms of religion that don’t really have a central God, like Jainism or Buddhism, the central characters are given the status of Gods opposed to what they really are – enlightened humans who have searched and found truth for living harmoniously.

We take them and start praying to them as opposed to following their path and teachings and looking inward. We are scared of what is not known to us and hence we pray for a force to redeem us. Much like eth small pox goddess which was in favor till we found and eliminated the virus. Religion I think was therefore invented to create a moral fabric that binds people even when they are dark to everyone around. This moral fabric is important for civil society to function properly. It allows for people to trust each other – you often see people helping other people of a similar cast / religion etc. People may not donate normally but are happy to give copious sums of money for religious reasons.

So religion is important, or should I say was important when it started. It created a set of shared values and an ecosystem that was necessary for trust and society to flourish. It created a culture. In today’s day and age, is it required? Can democracy, a vibrant media, an era of information sharing, do we need religion? I don’t know. If we realize that society requires people to be together, celebrate together. Play together, would we need religion? Corporate houses don’t require religion o bind and hence they create a culture and they have various events around which the employees congregate and share their lives. These shared lives are a type of religion. Only difference is that in religion you are born into it and you can really get out. The others are indoctrinated into it and then it becomes a cult.

But why am I talking this religious mumbo jumbo? Over the last weekend we went to this place near Ahmednagar called Meherabad. My brother and his wife are believers and have a couple of bunglows there and spend a lot of time there. I am ok with that except when it comes to going to the Samidhi and the taking into many teachings from there. Nothing I saw there as Meher baba’s teachings are something that I can find fault with. It seemed to be simple and straight forward and it seemed to foster brotherhood. But I saw people believing in him as an avatar (he called himself that as well, I am led to believe). It made no sense to me as if I don’t believe in God then his avatar seems even more ridiculous. We quietly ignored that bit. As a family they took us to the Samadhi and we just went along. I was too polite to get in to acts of rebellion or debate. We played along. We went to the Samadhi (I think where his last rites were held) and folded hands.

I had a chance to talk to Jispa there as well. She too was polite. She and I looked at each other knowing, we don’t believe and that we don’t really approve of this. I was telling her that she is lucky to have a life untested by faith and that is something I can never have.

I often wonder if religion is a necessity that I have deprived a child of or have I given her something greater. The ability to choose to have a moral principle or like I tell anyone – I don’t discuss morals with anyone. I don’t want to create, impose or advise people to have moral principles. You have your own, I have my own. They are personal. Just because I am Jain does not mean I will not eat onions. My reasons to be vegetarian are not because of my religion but choice. Same is for anyone around me. I rather focus on logic and the ability to live harmoniously for everyone’s benefit and whatever it takes for it is good. This too is selfish as a set of shared principles are good for the society at large.

That’s why I was telling that I am happy that festivals are celebrated in the building. It creates a common code for meeting and binding people. It’s like a cricket match as well. Same principles ally.  That’s why politicians promote sport and so do corporates. Bind over shared systems. In a hyper connected environment millions of loose connections will replace strongly held connections like religions or family ties. Religions will find themselves out of favor soon enough in any case. It will be interesting to see their reduction of preeminence. It will be replaced by loyalties to cities (sport teams in leagues – see), nations, hobbies (photography, dancing, exercise) and stuff like that.

The faster we see this the better it will be for us, after all a binding that is fun and chosen into as opposed to be born into will always be better and more connected. A well-crafted secular constitution with broad set of rules and leaves everything else to imagination will replace religious texts for framing our behavioral paradigms. This is my vison for the future but of course, it will have to fight a history of religion, hatred, brotherhood, family ties etc. So all the sporting leagues that use cities as a base are actually slowly denting the strangle hold of religion and giving people greater causes to bind themselves with. For the hell of me, I have never understood why we want to watch the matches of the cities we live in and support – we should be watching the sport for the love of it. But then….

notes from China

I have had an awesome run as far as tech is concerned in the last couple of months. Last month I was in San Fransico meeting all the tech firms and last week, I had a chance to be in China, meeting the tech firms there. I read somewhere that the startups try and get distribution before the big firms get innovation. It’s an interesting run. A tight fight where everyone is trying to outrun each other.

China is especially fun on the world circuit. It has a closed start up tech eco system as most the world biggies are not allowed to operate there. This is because the government wants data and insights into their citizen’s online behavior and the firms from the valley refuse to toe the line. So home grown startups that blatantly copy the startups from the west have sprung up and are dominating the ecosystem. But to simply paint them all with one brush is the wrong thing. Two of them are innovating and are leading the world in their own fields. One is the chat platform WeChat and the other is the ecommerce platform Alibaba. Both are now moving into fintech and are using data to understand consumers and then using it for lending operations. This is now very interesting and dangerous territory. WeChat through WePay wants to lead in the high frequency payment ecosystem like food, taxis, groceries etc. Alibaba counterpart is AliPay following everywhere and online. Both premises are simple – one pushes through the chat interface and allows for people to use chat for commerce and transactions. The other creates an ecommerce platform and sees where it can extend its wallet services to. The world is watching what the real deal will be. Will payments be won by chat or by ecom. Payments is the main stay of the new economy. Banks for long have dominated income and investments and used that as a data point to give credit. These wallet companies have side stepped this and said that people spend more than they invest. Day to day spending and online behavior may be a better indicator of propensity to repay credit than anything else. All sorts of data can now be used to understand the consumer better. Now big data starts playing a huge role.

Any and every data set will be used and leveraged for creating credit persona and score. This is very exciting. Both chat and ecommerce are sitting on a gold mine of data. Appreciably this data is lethal. A simple case can be that people who buy kiddie stuff or chat with other people with high credit scores are less likely to default than others. Alibaba also is understanding the merchandise sold by the merchants and their ability to sell their wares. This is creating a credit score on which Alibaba can offer credit to their merchants at a better rate and velocity than the banks. With high amount of data and online mode of delivery these new players can potentially disrupt the finance space at low operating costs and create a crazy disruption that traditional banks haven’t seen. And they are ahead of regulation. They innovate and regulation tries catching up with them. Alibaba started shifting money lying idle in the wallet to a money market mutual fund and overnight became one of the biggest mutual funds on the planet. They could now give 6% returns where previously the consumers were getting only .5% at their local bank. Huge monies shifted in till the government limited the amount of money you can keep in a wallet.

One big lesson that I learnt is that never underestimate the power of the old lender. I visited these places with my boss and his boss. Both of whom have built their lives giving loans in the credit business. At first we heard that the bad debts are only at 1%. Which is a phenomenal number. That’s lower than anything else. My only concern was that this belies the fact that the small amounts that these people lend, makes collections impossible. The cost of collection is still far higher than anything else. My boss had another point. He explained to me that in a fast growing credit market like China (this is a two year phenomena) bad debts will always be low. Because you are constantly giving away larger and large amounts of loans so your denominator is increasing like crazy. It takes a little time for the loans to go bad and in that time your fresh loans hit the book and the numerator which is the bad loan number looks bad. This is great till you are constantly growing. The denominator keeps looking bigger and the ratio looks good. But what we don’t see is two things – infant delinquency and bad debts via aging of the book. Infant delinquency is simple – how fast do the loans go bad. If loans go bad after a couple of years of good payments, then you can blame the macroeconomic environment. But if they are getting bad closer to the time you lent them, then you are talking about faulty process in credit appraisal. The other one is an extension of the first, it’s about understanding each month of credit. You have to analyze not the entire book but each month of loan given as they age. You will then get a sense of the looming danger. So at a book level 1% looks good, but most of that is from the start of the book then as time wears on, slowly the old book will also start defaulting and stress starts on the whole book.

This simple math helped me understand the credit business and the ability to look at credit from a different perspective. So while I went into China dazzled by their stupendous success in credit, I came back quite skeptical of the whole system. They have lent billions of dollars in easy credit and they just could be sitting on a bubble. Something amiss is happening in China and this could be just another subprime crisis of the east.

I have been critical of the startups in FinTech. They are started by a bunch of kids who haven’t seen credit cycles and believe that black swans don’t exist. All are looking for innovative ways to lose money faster. Yes data is now abundant and there is serious analytics that can be brought to the table but I always had a serious healthy respect for people who understand credit. I think the firm that I work in has built itself by precisely understanding this – risk. It understood that in finance, return of capital is far greater than return on capital. Credit follows cycles and when you outlive cycles you see growth and prosperity. Sometimes the simplest rule of growth is survival.

On another note, I had the chance to visit the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, while I had a couple of hours free. It was seriously the best designed memorial / museum that I had been to. As a marketer I see every ad and think – what was the brief, what was the desired consumer response, who is the ad meant for and what is the objective / problem to be addressed? When I saw the Memorial, I was in love with the architecture / design of the place. The entire memorial was designed to a specific brief (my reading) - “Bring alive the horrors inflicted on the Chinese race by a brutal aggressor, in a way that we will never forget.”

Bring alive is an important part of the brief. After their defeat the Japanese destroyed a large part of their war records so that it could never be sued against them. Many disputed that these massacres ever occurred and if at all, the Japanese dispute that the death toll was high as three hundred thousand.

The Architect was clear in his design. At first he designed the entire monument in black and grey. Outside the memorial are status designed to evoke a sense of empathy towards the horrors inflicted. They refer to the enemy as the devil which came, tortured the citizens, killed children, did not spare the old and raped the women. The word Devils is used again and again. The place has landscaping done in a desolate grey with stone pebbles used instead of grass for any landscaping. You fell the solemnness of the grey all over at the entrance. You enter the building and you go down – two floors. As you go down the first thing you see alongside the steps are the rows of folders marked with the alphabets. I don’t know for sure, but it felt like this was the catalogue of all the people who died at Nanjing. They had arranged it like a library with a ladder as well in case someone wanted to climb up and seek a particular folder from eth catalogue. Of course no one would cross over and pick up a book, but the recreation was thus. In many ways the first thing the curator wanted was to tell you, that is a work of research and not simple baseless propaganda. Once you understand that you are ready for the next exhibit.

All the while you go underground, light fades away and blackness takes over. The lights are dimed out and there are grey walls, black floors and ceiling. The lights are focused only where you want the audience to see and only enough to see the exhibit and nothing more. You enter into a large hall with the letters 300000 etched on a stone emphasizing that this large number is the victim count. On both sides of the door as you enter are color pictures of people who lived till the opening of the memorial from the Nanjing massacre. Eyewitnesses who lived to tell us of what transpired. Then the walls are filled with sepia photos of people who died and in the middle stone blocks taken from the scene of the massacres as a silent testimony of the truth that they could tell, if only!

Now that it is proved as a scholarly work and a number is etched in your brain, you are ready for the museum, which talks about the incident. Photos from Japan of the cabinet meetings where they discussed the invasion of China and the advance of the Japanese. They had exhibits of the Japanese uniform, extensive photos, articles etc. All beautifully arranged and explained in Chinese and English. They had the exhibits in audio video as well with movies played in loop with victims explaining in graphic detail how they were tortured, dismembered and what they saw. Every tool available is used well. They recreated the destroyed cities on a life scale. After a few halls that you pass through you are now ready for the big bang. I walked in a little more and saw that there was a gallery like structure created where you can lean on and see what was there under your feet. Like a massive open hole in the ground to show you the ground on which the memorial was built. There – numbered on the ground were skeletons exposed as they were stuck to the ground. It hits you that you were above a massive graveyard where the bodies were dumped after being massacred. Some were even dumped alive (as claimed).

Oh dear. That hits you. You are now suitably numb as the museum unfold for the next one to two hours and they keep at it. You exit from one building to be lead into another. You still see grey with some small smatterings of grass grown strategically in patches. Next build is an even larger uncovered dumping site with more exposed skeletons. They haven’t spared the dignity of the dead in order to show case the brutality. I don’t know how important it is to expose this in reality to the people visiting.

You at the end exit into sunlight with a small exhibition on peace and a massive white statue of a lady releasing dove in the open. One small gesture just to show that the objective of the memorial is peace and not to incite wounds. Bull shit. I am no Chinese but even I feel angry at the incidents and at the absolute horror inflicted by the Japanese. I release what the Chinese are meant to feel after they visit the museum. I realize now why at the start of the museum, there are flower and flag sellers. It is a monument to Nationalism. That a weak nation will be at the mercy of the brutality of a stronger nation. Fewer Japanese in number attacked and brought about misery to a larger population, something that was explained at the start of the memorial itself.

The memorial is not peace but for solidarity and for the promotion of a united front against a stronger adversary. I felt no peace after the end. I felt no feeling of the futility of war but a seething anger against a brutal oppressor. It was not a neutral version of history, devoid of emotion but a clear retelling of the Chinese side.

That is the magic of the architect and a curator sticking to a brief. A single minded brief - “Bring alive the horrors inflicted on the Chinese race by a brutal aggressor, in a way that we will never forget.”

I felt completely overwhelmed. Any design, architecture, advertising student must see this for themselves to understand how design can play with your emotions and feelings. This is propaganda at its best. The highest level. Propaganda is best when you don’t know you are being sold to but you are sucked inside by a vortex devoid of rhetoric.

And yes – the memorial doesn’t have an entry fee.

to err is parent

Life is all about ups and downs. There is no linearity in life. Some days you feel good and some days you feel down. Experience is nothing but knowing this and enjoying when you are up and not worrying too much when you are down. WE try and smoothen the curve by being less exuberant when we are on top. We try and save some money for the rainy day. We try and keep a little joy aside and try and share it with others who might be facing a down side. That is life.

When I was younger, much younger, I was told to save money for a rainy day. Rather I was told and fed into the brain that I must save. I will never forget that one day on my honeymoon, when Jasmine and I were walking from our hotel in Gwaldam to a Buddhist monastery nearby. We were walking and discussing our finances. My salary was not more than 10 thousand a month and we were planning what our expenses would be. It was 6 thousand to mm for running expenses and around 2 thousand a month for our expenses such as restaurants, roaming around etc and we had planned to save another 2 thousand for a rainy day – savings amounting to 24 thousand a year. I really thought that was a good number at the time.

What I did not realize that my salary and life would turn and turn again and I would find that number abysmally small. The salary itself would go up so much that you don’t really need to save money at the start of your career. So looking back, possibly I should have taken that money and blown it up on fun things and more vacations and a lot of other things that young couples would spend on. Possibly a few more dinners. At the start of one’s career, it is almost futile to save money. I see no point in it the amount being saved.

But the question is not on the amount but on the habit and principle of it. One must save as a matter of good governance. Otherwise one gets used to spending and then that is the end of it all. I think that 2 thousand a month was important as a beacon and not as amount in itself. It set the tone for us as a family that looked to save money from the money it made every month. It set eth tone for Jasmine and me that we will not go beyond our means and save whatever small amount we possibly could.

For any youngster that is starting off – a simple advice – enjoy life after setting aside a small amount – pre defined – in the equity market, either as direct investment in stocks or as a mutual fund investment.  That’s it – rest must be used to live life to the fullest. When any young kid asks me for investment advice, I first tell them to blow money on their passions. Travel, read, meet people, do a lot of fun things and try and achieve your objectives in life. You can only do that when you are younger. When age burdens you with responsibilities, so many things go off the window. I would think a 100 times today before jumping off a cliff in a hang glider today. I would have gladly done it as a 25 year old.

Youth must be enjoyed to the best of its ability. Money will follow. As you grow older, the simple principle is to not let your life expand at the same pace as your salary. This way you enjoy but you save an incremental percentage of your growth. That is the best way to look at life and money, and still live your life.

These days I am in a different zone as a parent. Many years ago the book I read on parenting told me the one rule that I won’t forget ‘permit where you can, protect where you must’. As Jispa is 15, I more than ever keep it in my head. I am trying my best to let go and stop being too protective about her. I keep having conversations with Jasmine on this. Jasmine and I often talk on how much we must allow her. Suppose there is a sleep over at a friend’s place from school – is this allowed? I understand where Jasmine is coming from. We don’t know the person properly and their family and hence must we send. Will this become a precedent? Will this be used again and again? I don’t know. Honestly, I tell her that ‘I don’t disagree with you’. Yes Jasmine is right but also Jispa is 15 now and she must learn to be away and make decisions for herself. She has to now take charge of her life. I keep telling that at 15 my parents had no clue what I was doing in life. I was on my own. What jasmine also reminded me was that I was always regretted that my parents did not push me right. All they did was give me lectures on studying but did not really create or manage my schedule that made me study. So in that respect Jasmine is right. We must push Jispa now. This is not the time to let go of the accelerator. After 15 years of hard work, this is not the time to give up.

But at the same time she needs an advocate on her side as well. So I guess that is my job. I at heart agree with jasmine but I fight myself and try and fight for freedom from Jispa’s side as well. That is important in the family. Now at this age we need to push the bar on what we allow. We have to let her free but slowly cut the umbilical cord. This is delicate procedure where you don’t know which side to err on. Safety first or freedom first. Sigh. Parenting is a tough job. Best of luck to you all.

buckets everywhere

Blogging is so important for your soul. Soul? Yup. It’s so important for my soul. It saved me yesterday.

Ten years ago things got bad and I had to leave home and set up my own home away. One of the things I managed to do is never ever fight with mom ever. We had our periods of talking or not talking, but I never did fight with her. I knew she is my mom and at the end of it she does care for me and she finally made me what I am.

When we were growing up shifting from Dubai to India was an episode I would have loved to forget. From plenty to nothingness. Then more crap happened as we moved here. My dad got his first massive heart attack and that was a tough blow for the family. Yes we had savings but it also meant that he would never be able to do his core job, that is as a civil engineer, walking up and down building steps as it is being constructed. We moved to our new home that they planned and we started to build our lives.

I remember having a lot of foreign things in the house as we transferred a lot from Dubai to India in the government scheme called TR (Transfer of Residence). This meant that we had a lot of stuff, but it also meant that all this quickly dwindled away. Mom started a nursery to keep the income going. We were never poor or disadvantaged at any point but it meant that we saw a contrast that as a kid I hated to see. I remember asking many things from my parents and a lot of the time, wasteful expense was not encouraged. So I guess, I heard more no’s that yes. As a kid I dint like it but I have blogged about this, that I now understand it and I bear no ill will towards my parents. I think given the circumstances that’s the best they could afford and that’s the best we could do. My blog helped me clearly explain this out for myself in my head.

On Saturday I was alone at home and I thought I could spend some time with mom. I called her and told her that I was coming home to dinner. I just wanted to spend time with her, chill around. So I spent the evening with mom. Later in the evening she told me that she wanted to buy me something for my new home which we were renovating. Ya mom, but I don’t need anything. Luckily I am earning enough and it’s not needed. Mom still insisted and she gave me a cheque. This was not the thing. She said something that in some ways just touched my heart. She said that when she had us kids growing up, we would ask for a lot of things and it would break her heart to say no to so many things. We couldn’t really afford it and hence she would be forced to say no. She said she hated doing that but had no choice. Now she has money and she wants me to buy things that I want. Hence take the money.

Oh dear dear me. It killed me. Ya. As a kid I was mindful of the fact that we had less money but also I think as a kid I asked for things. I know and thanks to the blog, I know for sure in my mind that I was aware of it and that I don’t hold that against anyone. I grew up. This blog yesterday saved my soul from being burnt with guilt.

Closer home to the present. We are building our home and we are going broke. Our complete cash flow is being compromised as we go over budget. But it’s our home and we are aware. Thanks to some circumstances we haven’t had a big holiday and we haven’t had a chance to go abroad as a family. Now with the house coming in and screwing our finances, it not happening soon either. So this time when my friend was taking kids to a diving trip to the Philippines, my first reaction was to say no. We can’t afford it – a straight 1.5L poof, gone, for one person. That was not happening. But Jasmine told me – its ok dad. Where we send her anywhere. We can’t go but at least she can. It’s not that we can’t manage. I was agreeing but I did not want to screw the finances. I would have had to sell my shares (hard assets) for this. Jasmine still said ‘for what do we have all this’. If at this age she cant go then when will she go? Every time something or the other comes up. I agree. It does. One HUGE regret, we didn’t go to Hong Kong Disney when she was the age for it. I still find myself a failure as I couldn’t take my kid to DIsneyLand. I always wanted to do it. I had the money at the time but the outlook was bleak and we postponed it and it then never happened.

So I agreed. Jasmine was right. She IS right. My sweet mom, is right trying to do amends. I can do it right away. Ya its big but it’s not that I can’t afford. It can be made up and we can manage. Jasmine and me discussed that at this stage, we are older and we can choose not to go diving. Instead of all of us going, let Jispa go thrice, its better bang for buck. Ya. I wanted to do scuba, sky diving, bungee jumping and other stuff. But I am not worried. I think I will manage to do it. I went to the silicon valley and met all the tech companies – that was one off the bucket list. The others will come. But at least a 15 year old can tick one for herself now. That’s a great age to develop passion and experiences. Not 42. The next age I think is 54. That should be fun.

I told my mom yesterday – mom, your kids are cool. They work hard and they enjoy their lives and they have money. Take all your money and live however you want to. Don’t leave a penny for us. Not a penny. So while she also told us no while we were kids, I also know, they told themselves no for so many things. Who are we to judge our parents or anyone in history.

History – today I did a long cherished dream. I was a tour guide to Elephanta. A couple of our friends came in from Canada. Two old women who are absolutely amazing. I took them there and showed them the caves and helped them understand a lot of Mumbai, India and the caves. This is my third visit to the caves and I loved it. I reread the book and now I am able to interpret it completely from my eyes and my angles. History is about interpretation and so is mythology. I see the caves very differently from how the others would. For me, it’s my own version of the story and the architecture. It what I want out of it and how I am able to share my vision with others. Wow. I was so thrilled. I took a laser pointer and took my friends to the caves. Soon enough, a guide came up to me and asked me if I needed a guide. NO. I am good. But they insisted. They said, they were ASI certified guides and only they could show the monument, not me. Yes – I understand you. But I am not a guide. I am friend. I am not charging any money and I am not soliciting any tourists inside the monument. How can you stop me? I am a banker and not a guide, you don’t see my face every day and please, there is no law against what I am doing. I was disturbed three to four times. I think not many understand that normal everyday people can also have a reservoir of knowledge and want to freely pass them on. Jokers. I had quite a few arguments and I was pissed. While leaving, they again confronted me and told me that it’s not right. I again stood my ground. There is no law on this. These are my friends and I can show them around, without you. Arggghhh. This was irritating. The guards were very reasonable. They came and asked me – are these your friends, then there is no issue. You can do it, it not against any rules. We left the place, but it was super fun. I loved it and I realized that I could explain this temple without a book and with ease and build a credible, or should I say incredible story around it. I am going to retire and be an official storyteller. The name of my company is going to be  - ‘Through My Eyes’. I hope to retire rich enough to start this passion where, we take super care of all the tourists and have a free model with an ability for the tourist to pay whatever he wants at the end of it. No questions asked. I don’t mind a small box at the end where I don’t even know, who paid how much, so people pay for value and not for show.

Then I took them to St Thomas Cathedral and in and around the Fort area. I loved the 8 hours I spent with them. It was beautiful. I told them, don’t thank me – my wife would tell you – I need to thank you for allowing me to do this. To be mistaken for a tour guide in Elephanta - One more off the bucket list!

brain wave

What is depression? I find it hard to understand it. I think it’s like hunger. You can write reams of paper on it but you can’t really understand it till you actually feel it. I have never be able to really understand it at its depths. I have seen a few patients suffer from it and I wonder. When I was younger I tried to get people off it by talking to them and by trying to counsel them, but this was pretty much useless. I leant that people have their own battles to fight and the reasons can be both purely biological and psychological. It’s easy to lecture when you are on the other side but it’s extremely difficult when you face it yourself, I guess.

No I am not depressed or experiencing extreme sadness for now, if you are wondering. But yes, I am facing some not so happy mood swings right now. They seem to be irritate me right now as I fight them off. A few things are triggering them – first when I was in US, the first Sunday that I was free and by myself was horrible enough. Sitting in a foreign town and wondering whom to talk to and what to do is tough enough for me. At 42, I have seen a lot of life. Earlier when I used to go abroad, or out of town there was a sense of newness and a sense of exploration and taking in the sights. But now I guess that also has worn off a bit and now some amount of déjà vu set it and it was a tough day. Plus I went to a family place like an aquarium and completely lost it. Alone, in a separate land with happy families around me –oh dear, I was so home sick. But funnily, it lasted till lunch. On a full stomach, I just felt a lot better. Possibly it was the biology of it more than the mind.

Right now, Jasmine is with Jispa in Delhi for an event for 7 days. This is really hard for me. I don’t like empty houses and I hate being alone without my family. Luckily I have a packed schedule but it still gets to me. I think I just get angry at the world and it comes out in funny ways. I have learnt to just smile and know that this too shall pass.

Coming back to depression. I can seem to understand some of this of what goes on in peoples mind. Right now my mind refuses to see reason and forgive or hold patience. It is angry and tired. I have to reign it in. Tougher said than done. This is a small and tiny bit of what I think depression goes through. Who can talk to you when you don’t want to listen? How can you will your brain to outwit itself? When you are pissed every argument is in favor of your brain and what it seems to think. Mind has a way to thinking itself to its own reason. This is crazier than ever. I have always believed that i have a decent mind but it thinks all the time.  Like my good friend Sonal tells me, I need to give my brain a rest. She threatens to give a coloring book. Nothing can be tougher for me than a coloring book. Doing aimless, completely aimless, irrational waste of time with no learning… oh dear me, I would completely fry out.

 So it’s difficult to understand how the brain works. We don’t understand how our own brain works and here we are supposed to lead a bunch of people and manage their brains as well. How the hell does it work? We have barely been able to deduce any of its contents and its functioning.

How do I try to manage my own brains and my complexity – let me tell you about myself more than about anyone else? I have learnt that my brain is quite a tireless worker and it needs to be constantly challenged. It seems to like a challenge and like to do interesting things. It wants to learn all the time and it wants to spread all its power for the common benefit of all. It has many moods but it can be coaxed by its different parts to allow itself to be molded. It can laugh at itself. Which I think is one of the biggest assets that it can have.

I have allowed the luxury of my brain to laugh at itself. This is not a small easy step. This is a significant step. This allows me to be sad or happy or cry or angry or anything and then look at myself and laugh. This way I understand what I am going through without really being too perturbed by it. I like to look at my own emotions form an outside in perspective. It helps me also realize how I am being perceived and help me evaluate myself slightly more objectively. And fundamentally – it helps me look at my own emotions and … and laugh at them. I don’t think I can after a point control my emotions. I can check them but they do give way and at that time all one can do is look at them and think about them. Once I think about them and laugh then I can change – either immediately or possibly learn from it for the future. This is the simple effect of laughing at yourself.

This is my brain and this is how it has worked for me in the past. But one thing is for sure, the brain is an extremely complex piece of work with so many factors working on it and changing it and shaping it. It is fool hardy to control it or manage it. One can only look at it and manage it one small dot at a time.

I think as I am getting older I am begging to sound more and more like a cynic. A lot of variables that I thought are under control on closer scrutiny give way to randomness and chance. Within chance how can you have the notion of control? And how can you then change it by force of will. I think change can be enforced by perseverance more than anything else. You can manage through a concerted effort over a period of time by consciously trying and getting better at it, slowly. I have learnt many things and I have learnt a lot by simply seeing other people in action. But I think I also learnt a lot by seeing myself in action. Seeing what my rational or irrational mind is up to, playing these decisions again and again in my head and then seeing if I could improve them. This has been the cornerstone of my improvement program.

You know yourself the best and you have only yourself to fool. Yes my brain has fooled myself on multiple occasions but at least I try to learn from it. I may choose to get screwed again but then I know it was my fault. It’s been fun living this dual identity in my head. The ability to look at myself from an outside in perspective. It’s been lovely.

Here before you go, a lovely video explaining why you shouldn’t listen to your parents for your career decision. I have been seeing that propagating that thought forever. Don’t listen to your parents. They mean very well and they have your best concerns at their heart – exactly why you should not be listening to them. No good ever came about from listening to your parents on career. I try and explain the various skills required to Jispa but I definitely do not try and influence her career decision. I hope she doesn’t take a lot of my advice. Right now – I am constantly advising her one thing – learn to code. That’s my hangover from the US trip. Learn to code. Anything you do in life will be dictated by your coding knowledge, more than anything else. No profession will be immune from code. NONE. Bet your dad never gave you that advice. My dad advised me to learn computers, I disregarded it … joker..

a lemon and a peach market

No matter how bad the mood, the greatest joy I have found is in enjoying the company of your family. It was good that the last few months of my previous employment was a bit of a tough one. I used the time and the experience to grow smarter and tougher. I find it easier to deal with less catastrophic issues.

I have had some rough times in my career and many of them were earlier on in my life. These helped me prepare for a lot of shit that seemed to have followed. Of course it follows in different ways. Sometimes, there is boss trouble, sometimes there is peer trouble, sometimes, unrelated colleague trouble and sometimes employee trouble. Trouble doesn’t come with a standard tag or a name. You learn to deal with it and you learn about the vagaries of life while dealing with it. One of my reactions over a period of time is to simply buckle down and try and build a cocoon around yourself. Talking about it doesn’t really help. Hence sometimes I look at people talking about it to others and taking advice, making me wonder, if this was really helpful. Once in a while taking advice is good but more than that is to my view not healthy.

Over a period of time, I have realized that sitting, chatting and discussing with other people on various issues is a good thing. But consistently talking about your problems and looking for advice is practically useless. The old adage is that people say that you shouldn’t leave so much within yourself. It’s not good. Well – that’s a yes and a no. I think in life I have learnt to just simply contain a lot of the anguish and pain within myself. It served me well. Opening up did really do me good. I like the way men (archetype) are friends with each other (sounding sexist). We chat, we discuss and we move on. We simply don’t dwell too much on emotional issues. There are 100 different versions of this and counter versions, but I am discussing the archetype. Ok – forget the disclaimers. I am talking about the thing that when screwed, probably a response that allows you to just box it mentally and manage your other life well, possibly works best. In managing your other life, the time spent with your loved ones is something you cherish the most.

I love the way Jasmine fights with me these days. Or should I say – I love the way she responds when I fight with he these days. Whatever – it’s fun. I shout, she gets angry and in 30 seconds we are back, smiling at each other. It’s not personal. We fight and we just get back. No egos, no making up with each other – just the quiet confidence that we love each other more than what the fight is all about. That’s the only way we can manage to get through all the stuff that we are managing to do these days. Jispa’s swimming, the new house that we are planning about moving to, all the decor and the arrangements. It’s not possible to do all this and not fight. And it’s not possible to have good memories if we fight and sulk. Right now it’s going great and we are doing just fine on how we are doing up the house. Enough fights and enough fun times and a lot work trying to visualize all the work.

Coming back. I was in a horrendous mood since yesterday evening thanks to some crappy work I was seeing at work. But I liked the way I simply put my head down, slept through and when I woke up I decided to spend time with Jispa and jasmine at the dining table and take effort to smile and chat with them. There – I felt much better and I realized what real truth in life is.

Coming to which – Jispa is a real joker. She loves what she calls the ‘papa’ smell. Every time I wake up from sleep and I hug her she gets papa smell from my t shirt. So she makes it a point to sniff me when I wake her up. One day, out of the blue in the morning, I woke up removed my t shirt and threw it on her face and went for bath. After some time when she woke up she loved the fact that the t shirt was on her. Her words “I was dreaming that I was in a meadow and smelling flowers and the flowers were smelling of ‘papa smell’.” Hah! Jasmine didn’t know where to look. She rolled her eyes and was wondering to her self – these two are crazy.

With Jispa I have a pact going – she allows me to kiss her nose and I allow her to bite my arm. It’s an irrevocable pact. Now we have another pact that I engineered. I throw my t-shirt on her in the morning and allows me to give a kiss on her ear lobe twice a day. Her only condition is that I don’t do a slurp kiss. Hahaha. I engineered this one and in the morning I was explain to her – that thanks to this understanding a lot of benefits happened. First – she gets the t-shirt every day, second, I get to kiss her properly and not just sneak one on her ears while I am hugging her, third, I am forced to give a proper one – the one that she doesn’t really mind and fourth – it’s a sanity situation where I am constrained to two a day. All benefit when a trading pact happens. It benefits the whole ecosystem.

Today morning I was reading about The Market for Lemons. Here the economist Akerlof argues that in the market for used cars, there exist asymmetrical information. The buyer doesn’t know about the car quality but the seller does (which is the lemon and which the peach is). Over period of time, thanks to a trust deficit, the average price of the car being bought by the buyer will gravitate towards the middle, the average of the peach or the lemon. This will drive the peaches out of the market and then you are left with only lemons. This drives all the buyers out.

 An interesting quote from the paper: “The cost of dishonesty, therefore, lies not only in the amount by which the purchaser is cheated; the cost also must include the loss incurred from driving legitimate business out of existence”

The book I was reading spoke about how this paper is important in understanding that asymmetrical information is important in driving business out. With internet and apps and the platforms that it has mushroomed – people are able to rate each other and information can be democratized. This is the example of Uber allowing both the passenger and the driver to rate each other and similarly the case in AirBnB. It allows everyone to participate and the world becomes a more vibrant space. Trip advisor allowed the smaller hotels with exceptional service and no marketing budgets to beat the big hotels on ROI and occupancy rate. Information thus democratized forces people to improve their service or the lunch will move from the big stupid seller to the smart nimble seller on the basis of interactions that have been positive.

I have seen this thing in action. As Trip advisor and other review sites mushroomed the world became such a smaller place, such an accessible place, such a beautiful place. When I was in SFO I realized that to get anywhere to anywhere you just need Uber. This is a huge thing. Earlier you would wonder before takinga taxi in a new place – is cheating you, or taking you on the longer route or anything. Here all that friction is just taken care of. One other thing about uber – I have written about this in the past – is that in Mumbai it has caused a lot of congestion. I reaslie that it is in part thanks to the laws of the land. Here an average car owner cannot just switch on to become an Uber driver. He has to have a commercial registration and a yellow number plate. In US you can simply turn on the Uber app (some pre verification) and boom – you are an executive by day and an Uber driver on the way home. This is the ultimate Uber dream. Your car is idle and parked for 90% of the time. With Uber – you can simply sweat the asset through the day. Laws here stop that and hence the congestion. If you transform the laws, possibly you will have Uber and less congestion. That’s the great thing.

So it’s interesting, how Uber is relevant and the innovation has potential to really decongest the city. The ultimate Uber holy grail – Pooled, autonomous, electric vehicles. Now  that’s crazy. That’s serious transportation solutions. It uses existing infrastructure to provide a solution that promises to work and get the hassle off the commute. And without government spending.

That’s the power of innovation, freethinking and the ability to do business with minimal government regulation. That’s the case for regulation to reduce. And that’s the reason or trade. Trade allows rules to be formed that work well for all parties. Jispa gets my used t shirt and I get her ear lobe. Win win and everyone loses if the contract is broken. Speaking of which – distributed ledgers…. Some other day…