I have a Dream !

I have a dream...

...and I’m certainly not Martin Luther King Jr.
To be fairly accurate too, I had several dreams.
In fact, to be honest and accurate, I was an avid day-dreamer.

Please note the ‘was’ part.

The earliest dream, I recall was, when I was 2^nd grade; I was B.S.Chandrasekhar when I grow up, bowling India to victory with my own 6-31. Of course, I was also G.R.Vishwanath, getting “lifted” by this giant – Tony Grieg, on scoring a 100.

Then I was an adolescent – the dream was always technicolor and sometimes confused; but looking back the dreams were a fun-ride with very active and very much day-dreaming - always, with the 20/20 hindsight, makes me smile on some of the absurdity. With the advent of late teens in college, I was going to be the best communications engineer ever – do the engineering, post-graduate and PhD and will be launching rockets for India ! As reality bit, that morphed into a need for simple job later on; and the mid-20s was consumed for doing something complicated, complex and challenging at work; additionally, dream-walking through a few complications !

Then the dream of the late-30s was about the son, what my son would grow up into and how I was going to give him everything that I may have missed as a son growing up; we would be watching a cricket match together and perhaps watching a few other things too, together; I’ll be rooting for him to fall in love and find happiness, but at the same time apprehensive that he falls for the right one…

As I grew the dreams did not stop, they just grew with me – the canvas was different, the art was different, the strokes and colors were different, the songs were different, but nevertheless, the dreams remained.

Of all the dreams I had, I never thought my life would turn out to be thus; and not really sure how many of them have really come true…
But then I could really do with everyday doses of reality too !!

Now, after all these years of hectic dreaming and Past the important milestone (age-wise :) ) of the life, its just whittled down to one:

I have this one dream now - my dream is pretty simple - there would be a time machine on which I would get on, fast forward about twenty-five years into my product end-of-life and find out if this one dream have come true; including the time machine one - but then it seems like a recursive and circular reference error in the Microsoft XL

I still have that dream...

This Land of Heros...

Yesterday:
When Abdul Khan returned to his bed after cleaning-up, he found Noor Mohammad already asleep. Their other friend, Salim, was snoring. Abdul, smiling to himself, laid down next to his friend. He could not sleep easily; he has been worried about Noor for the past few months. But of late, things have been turning around for Noor and he was happy for him. As a celebration, both of them had finished their work today at around 9PM and gone out for a bit of fun. It was almost end of the month and they had gotten a small advance from their shop owner.

When they met for the first time about an year ago, Abdul and Noor hit it off with each other quickly. Both had come to Mumbai in search of work, like million others before them and perhaps million others after them. They had met at work; although Abdul was 7 years older than Noor, the fact that they were from the same town in UP also helped them to identify common memories and places and hence strike a bond. Both had left their places of birth and had come in search of work that can help them support their families back home. Noor had been married for about 3 years and had trouble with his wife; Abdul, meantime had come to support his wife and 2 kids, with a dream so that his two sons can have a better life than he has. Definitely they will have at least a bed to sleep on and a roof over their head, unlike him right now. However, with Noor it had been a different problem. Noor’s wife had left him and gone back to her parents. Noor, in an attempt to get over it had come to Mumbai; but mentally he could not and brooded over it all the time. But the luck was changing in his favor. Noor had received a letter from his uncle that his wife was repentant and hinted that she wanted to return. For Noor, it was a ray of hope – he believed that he would win his wife back. That was about two weeks ago.

Due to the upcoming festival season, the work was tight and the orders were flowing in; both of them did not have much time to do anything else. Finally, they did get some time off from their boss. Tonight both Abdul and Noor decided to go out for a dinner in one of the nicer restaurants and cap it off with a movie. Noor was a movie fanatic and was die-hard fan of Aman Khan – Noor, if he can, will not miss the first-day first-show of his favorite hero. He had not seen the new movie due to hectic time at work. Noor and Abdul had gone to a local restaurant, had a sumptuous mutton biriyani for dinner and had later gone to the night show. Noor’s child-like fascination for Aman Khan never ceased to amaze the more level-headed Abdul. It seemed that Noor almost lived in Aman’s character and did believe that someone like Aman would save them from their misery or fortune would smile at him like it did, unerringly in every movie for Aman. It was a three-hour escape from reality as far as Abdul was concerned. For Noor, it appeared that was the reality! From Abdul’s point of view, the movie that they went was no different from any other movie they had been to earlier – Aman Khan was a poor man, who woos his woman, marries her in spite of all the hardship, becomes rich and in the process loses her and wins her back. During their walk-back from the movie, Noor could not stop talking about the movie and why it was the best ever movie; and how his hero was the best amongst the lot. Abdul could see that Noor identified himself with Aman due to the fact that Aman wins back his wife in the story. But Abdul was very glad for Noor – it has been really a long time since he found Noor to be this happy and talkative; it was a big change from the past. On the walk-back, Noor had also told Abdul, he had planned to go back to his hometown during the upcoming holidays and see if he could get together back with wife. He seemed quite positive and sure about it.

That was about an hour ago. Abdul had told Noor to go to sleep, where he will join him on the outside. Abdul opened the shutter of the bakery where they worked, cleaned up, set up for the next day work. He downed the shutter, slipped the key into his inside pocket and spread his mat and pillow on the pavement next to his friend. It was a muggy late September and they had decided to sleep outside the bakery they work at. He looked down at his friend – Noor was smiling in his sleep – perhaps he was dreaming about returning to his wife, much like his hero. It was around 2.30AM in the night, when Abdul slipped into sleep.

Around the same time, Aman Khan was in the bar of the five-star hotel, downing his 6^th drink of whiskey. He felt good – his latest movie was a roaring success; he had his foolish fans eating out of his hands. He smiled, looked at his watch, exited the bar, got into his expensive, imported and huge SUV and drove off…

Today:
Abdul, in the twilight zone between unconscious state and awareness, was slowly waking up - he felt a searing pain in his leg; he found out he was in a hospital and was told that few of his bones were broken. As he was gaining complete, but rather painful, consciousness, he could begin to recollect what happened the previous night. Just before getting run over, for some reason he had come awake – he saw a huge phoren vehicle that had climbed the pavement where they had been sleeping. After he had been hit, in a moment of lucidity before slipping into darkness, he saw Salim writhing in agony, but Noor lying, scarily, still. And seemed dead – very much dead, with that smile that he went to sleep with, still in his face.

Non-Sequitur:
In the early hours of September 28, 2002, Salman Khan, the bollywood actor, in his Toyota Landcruiser, allegedly drove over four pavement dwellers, killing one and severely injuring two other. Tested nearly 24 hours after the accident, his alcohol limit was purportedly twice the permissible limit.
One can get more details at http://www.rediff.com/movies/salman.htm

Black Thursday

Irrelevantly:

In an unprecedented event, the Sensex (the Bombay Stock Exchange 30 share sensitive Index) fell by a massive 826.38 points on Thursday, the 18^th May 2006. This was the highest ever fall recorded in the history of Indian Stock Market. The financial experts and the newspapers promptly dubbed this day as Black Thursday.

Relevantly:

I first had that itch to try this out when I was a teen-ager. I think it was normal for any teen-ager, influenced by the movies and what that hero [1] had done. Since then, it was something that I have always wanted to do but never had an opportunity to start. Our “out of town, in the middle of nowhere wilderness” college did not provide any such opportunity. When I was in my mid-twenties, I was so immersed at work and at things that bachelors do after work-hours (I’m talking about hanging out with friends at movies and such) that I had no time for anything else. However, the innate desire still remained. Then the thirties came. I was at a place where I had an opportunity next door. I went to that place and checked it out; the place was full of energetic kids. I shied away from that once more, since I did not want to be sticking out as sore-thumb amongst them and with my conditioning, I was pretty sure, I would be; and be an embarrassment to myself and a joke to everyone else around.

Then towards the late 30s, when I was in the US, I finally found a perfect place – it was in the work place and the participants were all around my age; at least they were colleagues. If I was making a fool of myself, it was contained amongst my peers and now I had a safe excuse of being old enough not to be good at it. In fact, some were amazed that I had started at this age! Then I came back to India and was lucky enough to find an arrangement where I could continue the same at my new work place. It was just that I had to switch from one style to another.

Yes, I'm talking about Martial arts - martial arts that everyone got inspired by that one guy [1]. On my return, from being a green belt in Taekwondo, I started again as white-belt in Karate. After 5 years of being at it, I finally passed my black belt test in Dec 04, 2005, in presence of the founder of our style. A lot of people have asked me as to how I manage to balance work and find time to stick to karate training with regularity. My answer to them is always: “that’s why”. I very strongly believe Karate has given me a outlet for de-stressing; so much so that, in spite of the pain that our sensei puts us through, at the end of it, I always feel more lively, inspired and fresh. The tougher the class gets, the better I feel at the end of it. As an added bonus, I’ve been fortunate to find a good and dedicated teacher. Also, I quickly realized Karate alone will not succeed; it has brought in associated paraphernalia – the workout regimen; I found that it is highly impossible to stay through a karate class without being fit; that now has ensured me that I have some kind of workout at least 5-6 days a week.

The 18^th May, 2006 was indeed a personal Black Thursday for me. On this day, it was a culmination of almost a life-long dream and some commitment of six years. I was awarded a Diploma Certificate and my black belt. I was now officially a Shodan (first degree) in Shotokan Karate.

Notes:
[1]: The hero was, ofcourse, Bruce Lee and the movie was “Enter the Dragon”
[2]: If you want to find more about our Sensei and the founder of our style, check out links on this blog site

Adoption of Change

For the fear of Kaavya[1], I would like to upfront acknowledge the following paraphrased quote is not mine: “When asked about the sameness of routine that they go through, most people admitted would like to see change in them. At the same time, if you ask any organization, you would hear change management is the most challenging aspect of their business. So what is the paradox here? It is NOT that people do NOT want change; it is just that they do NOT like being changed”.

So given that most people do like changing and would like to, so what is that mindset that make adoption of change easier ? This could be best served yet another anecdote. I used to work with someone who told me a story of how he got booked by police while driving at 50 miles per hour in a zone that had speed limit of 30. This was in the US. As a penalty for the offence and to save negative points in his insurance, he chose to attend the 8 hour training class, instead of getting a ticket. If someone had attended this training, they can really tell you what a torture it is – they just sit you up and bore with you on all the road rules, and why one needs to follow them etc. At the end of the class, he believed that he would never again drive over the speed limit. Then after a while, once the memory (of the painful) training faded and he sensed no cops around, he found himself speeding over the limits again. So, when he actually introspected, he got the answer; he would actually would not stay within the speed limit, if the only thing that stops him is the fear of getting booked – when there is no cop, he will drive over the speed limit; but if he goes a bit deeper and understand why the speed limit exists and the implications that he can put his life and some other life in harms way if he exceeds the limit, is when he actually starts driving within the speed limit. This is where the internalization for the need to change his behaviour dawned on him.

Generalizing the above anecdote, when we apply ‘policing’ to ensure that behavioral change or adherence to the situation happens, then the act of adherence or changed behavior exists only until the policing is applied. We see it all around examples of this in India – how the traffic rules are flouted when police is not around, how laws generally are bent to suit one needs – this also has an implicit message; that policing does not lend to a sustainable change. I believe this is the same with the organizational changes driven by metric or stricter management reviews alone. However, at the same time, I’m not against the need for policing – there are times when policing helps; for an initial understanding, for leading people to experience the change – it gives the new law (or old laws, in case of India) or the new behaviour a chance to succeed; particularly, for people who are unable to think conceptually and need to experience the fruits of change. Or in places like Singapore – where a sustained policing through couple of generations have ingrained such a change/mindset in people’s DNA (however I’m not certain, given the globalization of information, if it is sustainable). For me this is one way of ensuring change – the Deterrent way.

The alternate way of adoption of change (or adherence to law) is by internalization within ones mind. One truly understands why a change to a new situation or a law is required: one can conceptualize in his or her mind as to why a certain action is required and is in complete harmony with it. They are the people who can actually see the reason of whys rather than dwell on the action of hows. In the speeding example above, the internalization of need for behaviour had come about, since this person understood that why part of it (not endangering any lives) rather than how part of it (keep within the speed-limit). Sometimes, this kind of internalization also serves to do what is right in grey zones rather than doing what is required by law or what is current norm. This is where some of the transformation starts; and some revolutions too. People who can conceptualize the need and can actually visualize the end-state and adopt change through this route are leaders in thought and in action. The path to this internalization could be through experiential or by purely by thought process. The change is much easier and sustainable over a longer period of time, if change is walked on this route. I call this, the Cognizant change.

So, do we expect every change to be Cognizant? Yes, I believe for it to be sustainable over a multitude and over multiple time-periods, it has to be Cognizant. (I wonder if this is the only place, where the "Cognitive" change, is also driven by "Affective" understanding) However, I believe, our starting point for adopting a change could be Deterrent. But sooner (than later), it has to move to zone of cognizance and probably, end up being Affective, as the final state. I believe. It is simple reality of laws of nature – we cannot hold anything or anyone in a state of order for long against its free will. Water cannot be kept in the ice-form without expending energy. When the energy is taken away, it does return to its natural form. Only place the water stays in its changed form, ice is where everything in the ecosystem is lending itself to support that form of existence – in the mountain peaks, in the poles and inside the freezer at full blast in a refrigerator – that becomes the natural state of existence; cognizant of its morphed state in a ecosystem in equilibrium. But more of that in an other essay.
_________________________________________________________________
Definitions[2]:
Cognition (/kognish’n/ )
• noun the mental acquisition of knowledge through thought, experience, and the senses.
Deterrent (/diterrnt/ )
• noun a thing that deters or is intended to deter.
Deter (/diter/) • verb (deterred, deterring)
1 discourage from doing something through fear of the consequences. 2 prevent the occurrence of.
Affective:adjective
1. of, caused by, or expressing emotion or feeling; emotional.
2. causing emotion or feeling.
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Coming Soon:
2. After Change Adoption, what?
3. From Personal adoption to an ecosystem adoption, is it easy ?
4. But Change is Constant, isn’t it?

Foot Notes:
[1] For the context, a google search on Kaavya Vishwanathan would yield several results
[2] From http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk

Cold Revenge...

Vik was looking forward to the evening; He had an air of edgy tension about him – he was so wrapped in his thoughts, that he realized, in fact, the evening had arrived and its just about half hour away. He had the mien of expectations around him and at the same time he was taut. He had waited so long, worked out of his earlier innuendos by his own kind – In 30 minutes or so, he will have shown his doubters in his peer community; Couple of his peers and their cohorts had derided Vik’s capability publicly and had made fun of what Vik could do or capable of. That had led Vik to be taken out circulation out of potential opportunities for a while. Slowly and painfully, Vik had worked on his revenge. It was not easy, but Vik’s determination had seen it through. Vik would take care of that today; He knew those peers were here at the event too, he had chanced upon them, unbeknownst to them. They would taste what revenge means – that was definite and certain – Vik would ensure that. That would be indeed sweet for Vik. And cold. How true, thought Vik of the cliché – revenge when served cold will be the sweetest.

It was time now, he was 10 minutes away – he got out of his room, walked down to the event and waited nervously. After what seemed forever, Vik heard his name called out; In the Annual Chef’s event, the highly regarded, the much talked about, highly secretive Vik’s recipe was making its debut – he went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and picked up his dessert creation – it was a mélange of mainly Red Wine, Vanilla and Gelatin; and he had picked an unique name for it; Yes, Revenge, the dessert, will taste the best when served cold.

To act or Not to act

I had an epiphany while doing my exercise this morning; triggered by an incident. One of the towels that was left to dry in our balcony (at the 2^nd floor level) had fallen off due to heavy winds last night. In my first two laps, I did not see the towel; but in my 3^rd lap I saw the towel and recognized it – someone had picked it up nicely and let it hang on one of the water pipes – so it was not getting any dirtier or blown around in the wind or anything like that. However, as soon as I knew it was my towel, I had this great urge to act immediately – pick it up and then take it upstairs to the room… That’s when I had the epiphany…

There are two things for us to be successful (in general, I'd believe):

1. To be able to ACT IN AN UNKNOWN situation (being comfortable with not knowing what the immediate action is, but not getting stunned to stillness).
2. To be able to NOT ACT IN A KNOWN situation (being restrained enough not to jump into action, but act with deliberation).
   

#1 above is fairly obvious. Most of the inventors come from exploring the unknown and having a curiosity of where no one has gone before (including Captain Kirk J). This is about discovering possibilities.

However, refrain from acting in a known situation was something I had not thought about at all, thus far. That was not my strength. Which is why sometimes I would miss out articulating the systemic view; and get to urgent things before important things. My point here is NOT that, we should NOT be action oriented; but the point is: If acting a little late is ok and has no impact, why not act later than sooner? Maybe newer information would present itself to give additional clarity or a better solution; specifically if its not a black and white situation and the solution is in the large grey zones between those boundaries.

When we are operating in a much limited circle of 'awareness', our action will be driven by what we know. Hence those and solutions resulting from those actions can end up being sub-optimal; since we do not know what we do not. Once we decide to go beyond the charming lure of the known, we start to look beyond the “obvious” and not allow us to be short-changed by what we know. Then, this self-awareness that there might be possibilities other than the known and choosing deliberately not to act, becomes our differentiator. I think this is key in a Strategy part of the cycle (of Strategy and Execution); when we are looking for a systemic and a holistic solution – striving to continuously raise the bar.

I’ve an examples to quote on the above, using my favorite metaphor repository – cricket J. Sanjay Manjrekar who is a good friend of Sachin Tendulkar (and hence you may want to discount some of what he gushes about Sachin), said that one of Sachin’s greatness lies from the fact that he can wait on the ball till the last moment and play it – and legend says that Sachin has a 6 ways of playing a ball and score runs off it where as lesser mortals would be happy defending it. Since Sachin picks the length and line early, it is easy for him to make a decision about what he needs to do with the ball; but he just does not act immediately, he plays it at late as possible and as differently he wants to; that’s where his genius about cricketing ability comes about. To me, Sachin, by choosing not to act earlier than absolutely necessary and in an obvious manner is creating and inventing possibilities.

This leads to the next stage then. The point that we could be creating/inventing possibilities would imply that we have created a situation that is perhaps widely unknown and unsolved. However, the need to make progress in resolution, still remains. Sometimes, in that situation, we realize that we need to develop new skills, functions and knowledge; and that puts us in a situation of unknown. This is the #1 above; we seek and act (like doing, experiencing, learning, reading etc) to get more clarity on the unknown and hence put us on the path of solution that is directionally valid. Here our awareness of our own limitations and choosing to act becomes a differentiator - being comfortable to act in an uncertain situation is, to me, key to the execution part of the cycle.

I do think the combination of the two above is the one that continuously raises the bar, expands the bounds of knowledge and pushes entity (either the person or the organization) towards excellence in creating, achieving and sustaining value.

I think the Shakespearean question is really not “To Act or not to act”; it is “To act AND not to act”.

The Tree

In mirthless autumn fatigue,
I, the Tree, stand bare,
Stripped of my cover,
at the threshold of cold winter fare.
Seemingly tired and resigned,
To face up the inimical snow
Assumed that I'll end up dead.
Little does the winter know;
I am quietly at peace;
With my roots deep in the earth
and my branches devoid of leaves,
Gives me the balance and strength
To counter the icy chill...
I, in my countenance still,
know that just around the bend
with my tenacious calm,
I will walk winter to its end;
Giving way to lovely spring,
I will regain all my glory
Rustle and whisper sweet nothing
I will dance to the gentle breeze.
I know nothing touches me,
For I am rooted deep in my beliefs -
They are my branches that take me ashore,
When adversity had shipwrecked me.
Oh yes, I've experienced grief
several times before...
But, each time, at the other side of harm,
I had help, patiently waiting,
to take me, with its open comforting arms -
in His blessing: The hope of eternal Spring.

Getting Better at Haiku...

Alt Tilte: Spirits, Alphabets, Splitting Headaches and Haiku.

'P'ke Baad 'Q'yun nahin aa raha hai,
Yeh Haiku; Soch, soch-ke
Head-Ache se Sar-Do ho raha hai !!!

Author's note: Well, will eventually get it, I guess.

What is Good for Geese...

Here is the excerpt that is taken out of an email that got sent to me; Someone has quoted Bryan Dollery as “Flow takes time to achieve, and it is fragile. If a programmer’s flow is interrupted it can take a large amount of time for her to regain the state, sometimes up to an hour. That’s an hour of lost productivity to your team. If a programmer is interrupted many times during the day she may never reach this state. Without this state, creativity is crippled”; and using this had come to conclude – “In Bay Area, environment is manageable as we get to use fairly good sized cubicles and generally its very peaceful here… … I noticed in India (no generalization here, this refers to my experience only) that there is not much of an effort in filtering out this new noise. Every input is of high priority. Chat from a friend, call from somebody, email from somewhere. … …”

Firstly, I want to agree to what is being said here; I'm sure we can be more alert, more organized, more disciplined in how we do our own work and how we do enable others. So lets all agree on that and take a deep breath...

1
2
3
4
5
6...

Now that agreement is done, I want to take conflict on this one "If a programmer's flow is interrupted it can take a large amount of time for her to regain the state, sometimes up to an hour. That's an hour of lost productivity to your team" - I believe this is a gross generalization - both on what engenders 'creativity' and what is implied by 'privacy'.

It may be true that some of the productivity is lost; but there are positives that come out of it; the point that we are able to relate well and work well within such a chaos, is a pointer to the vibrancy of others feel when the come to India. The seeming chaos and the seeming hurry all around us to get somewhere quickly, is also the one that arises out of our perennial scarcity; and the syndrome of scarcity is the one the make businessmen and housewives all across India innovate in their business model and in their daily lives. Also, some of this seeming chaos is what provides other aspects of work other than 'creativity'. Its patronizing to assume what is true for a culture is true for every other culture; just because IT which was done in the US is now done in India does NOT imply that it has to be done in a similar environment and in the same way. We were doing creative work within this chaos even before IT came here - look at all the R&D Government organizations; movie industry, ads, Tagore, Barathi, fast breeder reactor, Jaipur Foot and thousand other day-to-day innovations people make to live within the constraints of scarcity.

The privacy of space is much different in our culture than what it would mean in a western (or US) culture. Last week a friend of mine took my family into his parents’ home and his parents were most welcoming. I’m sure it introduced chaos into their lives and intruded into their ‘privacy’. Inspite of differences of languages between us, our inability to communicate effectively, at the end of it, there was nothing from them to suggest that they resented our presence as loss of their privacy. Privacy of space does not imply the same in India as it would imply in the US. Seeing it uni-dimensionally and assuming so, will be at Assumer’s own peril

Having said all that, just I’d suggest a viewing of this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM
I wonder if such a self-organizing and self-healing environment can ever exist in the Bay area, for all the goodness the presence of Fry's and Saravana Bhavan brings to life :)

What is good for geese, in this case, is definitely not good for gander. And what perhaps makes up as a (newsy-juicy) sleaze should not be up for slander.

The Forsaken and Forgotten Battles

I wait for an opportunity to regain ground from my enemy. I know, like me, the enemy is also completely conscious and aware of the circumstances. At this point in time, we both are in the state of equilibrium - its like a breather where two gladiators size each other up after having gone hammer and tongs at each other with no one gaining any advantage; we wait for the other to blink and make the first mistake, at which we swoop down on the opportunity and push the other further back out of the territory.

We both are lone warriors; sent out to a distant outpost to protect a narrow strip of land that we both claim is ours. At best of times, we tend to share that land equally. At worst of times, small battles break out resulting in pushing and shoving; sometime very very obvious, sometime very very subtle. At most times, for us, the lone soldier on the ground, the watch has to be constant – there is no time to sleep; while the high command goes quiet based on seasonal changes, we have to be extremely vigilant. Any small movement of the enemy is circumspect: the attention that we give each other is unrelenting. This is a war that is fought in stealth and cannot be talked about; the high command will keep the façade of friendliness and will continue to be engaged in talks; while it expects us, the lone outposters to hold on to, at minimum, the fair share of the common ground that both of us claim. We are forsaken castaways…

…but we do our job. As I stare down my opponent in this strip of land, I have a genuine respect for him. I know he does for me too. But we aren’t going to let that come in our ways of this war of attrition. As we stand our ground, I see a slight slackness in my enemy – maybe its fatigue catching up. Maybe its something else, I sense an opportunity, but I don’t show it – I know any sign of excitement in my face would be a warning sign for my enemy – I keep a poker face and wait. At last, he makes a false move – as tiredness washes over him, he slightly shifts himself a step back; I sense the opportunity for the kill, and seize it; I drive in, as he moves a bit further on his own, I use his own momentum to push him off the narrow strip almost out of it. He clings on, but I know its only a matter of time, that I can claim the whole land as mine. I feel a gloating come up within me. I am proud - from where I was to now, this is good. I started on my edge of the land and have in this time, captured the whole strip, I feel elated…

Alas, my elation lasts only for a few moments; as I am being pulled away forcibly from the land that I occupied with great difficulty – I see that providing my enemy an opportunity, to grab his lost ground; As I’m being recalled by my high command, I see with disappointment, at the lost ground…

…As the man in the aisle seat, 21C, gets up to go to the restroom in the plane, his left forearm wistfully looks at the armrest of the seat that it had occupied comfortably for the past 10 minutes and finds that the person in 21B, seat himself comfortably and occupying the armrest to his right…

Haiku at a Junction !!

On the bumpy ride
of self discovery
On the path strewn
with pointers unseen
to future Unknown,
Why are the milestones
visible only in the rearview ?
Where are the signposts
promised at the cross-roads?
Frozen inaction, he thinks up,
irrelevantly, a non sequitur
"I've nary a clue
on Haiku too !!"

Primogeniture

There are a few times in your life that you pause and examine your gory past.

One such definite time is when the mortality deals you a kisami Zuki (or front jab) and smiles at you. I recently went past yet another birthday and I realize perhaps I will have less years to live than I have lived thus far - I used this to joke with a young pup: "You folks sleep walk through life having no idea if you are going or coming; alteast, us blokes are sure, we are going" !

The other triggers for introspection is when you are conscious of what you profess now as to what you did when you were much younger; the kind where you elevate yourself from the scene and look at the situation right on the ground - say you as a respected man of standing (hopefully) have to advice the above-mentioned young-pups on taking responsibility; it was much like what I used to wonder - if ever Krishnamachari Srikkanth becomes the coach of the Indian cricket team - he was pretty close to that, coaching the India A team - what would he ever say to, someone like Dhoni or Sehwag ? That they need get behind the line ? Sometimes, to fess up the truth, I feel so surreal to be advising my neice on what the right thing is !! Anyways, I'm digressing (blame it on old-age)...

Third such moment of introspection is your existing relationship and your part in it; as against what it was when you were at a different stage of your life. In this canvas, I looked at my relationship with my growing son; As a father, I know how i feel about him. This combined with my own mortality and perhaps my father's mortality - made me look back at my father's relationship with me...

To understand that better, we need to rewind a bit more. I've an older (really old, if you are reading this :) ) sister... In my dad's family of 4 siblings, she was the first kid in the extended and joint family - hence immediately adopted by all my dad's siblings and my grandparents as the princess. When she was born, it was not only a successful launch of a new product, it was a successful product also. If the legend has it right, the eco-system that revolved around that small house in chennai seemed to revolve around and for her - the hand-rickshaw-wallah, the opposite petty shop, and if i were to believe some stories, even weather in Chennai those days. So you get the picture - she was the darling of all and everyone. Then several years later, I happend. Forget it, I wasn't even Dravid's 180 to Laxman's 281. I was the opener's score in that match - do you recall who he was ? Do you recall what his score was ? My point exactly.

So as we grew, thing changed. For the better for my sister and for the worse for me. She actually studied much better than everyone else and first in the family to get into professional (medical) college. I was actually getting better at what I had embarked on - that is being the worst student of the class and kind of settled down in the last quarter of the class in my middle school. For my dad, who believed (past tense, since I suspect experience has changed him now) that getting to be a meritorius student is the ultimate for any growing kid, it was a pefect foil that my sis was feeding him. I, languishing where I was in the class, had no locus standi to convince him otherwise; for merely it would be an excuse - not that I had anything else in some field to show for. So I kind of settled for the 9th place in the two-person race vying to be the favourite in the family. Forget the game, like they say, I wasn't even in the same ground; forget the ball-park, I wasn't in the same league. I was collecting ducks playing street cricket, whereas my sis was scoring 100s in test matches. It was that contrasting.

With that being the background, some 20 years later, my son came along. I do know how I feel about him; and that made think - could it have been the same for my father ? At such an intersection (some call it cross-roads) of age and my feeling for my son, I paused and looked back. As I introspected, one incident stands out.

I think i was in the 9th or 10th standard and we were living in Bangalore. There was this guest from some other town, who had come home and wanted to go to Whitefield to meet the Godman, Sri Satya Sai Baba. He had asked me to accompany him to the ashram; the plan was to leave our house at 6AM, ride down to whitefield and have Sai Baba's darshan (at 6.45AM). He had also borrowed my dad's scooter to get there. As we started, the guest of ours, not perhaps used to riding a vespa, did not engage the clutch right - the scooter reared up like an horse on hindlegs. In any case, we did reach the whitefield ashram, but had just missed the morning darshan. Our guest decided to stay till the 9AM darshan, see the Baba and return. We did so and returned to our house around 10AM. The guest parked the scooter, gave the key to me and left.

As I went upstairs to my house, my mom told me that seeing how our guest was driving the scooter, my dad was very worried, specifically seeing how our guest had driven the scooter. To add fuel to the fire, since we were to return after the 6.45AM darshan and we had not returned yet, my dad had gone out searching for us. After about 10 min later, my dad comes into the house, sees me. I clearly recall now - the scene is right in front of my eyes - he holds my hand for what seemed a long time and there are tears in his eyes.

I realised then, perhaps transiently; and i realize now, the truth - although, my sister was (or is) his favourite and he may have liked my sister more, he loved us both - equally.

The Alchemist

You are in your deep sleep,
your face set so serene;
Perhaps ensconced in a lovely dream
of fairy lands, rainbows and streams;
Your lips curl in smile,
in that frozen moment of reverie,
My dear son, you teach me,
The true meaning of complete tranquility !

You are my guru who questions my precepts.
That one day,
when you impatiently opened your present
threw that expensive toy away,
and played with the packing paraphernalia instead,
not a wee bit, I was disappointed,
For I had learned what a true joy means,
in your play, your face lighted up in 1000 neons !

Going against the grain of what you are,
I see you stay the tough course far,
As I stand watching you experience
the pain, frustrations and finally closure,
I now know – that is patience !

You have taught me unconditional kindness
by your guileless therapeutic hugs;
And that humor harmless
Could be humane and funnier than a biting wit.
Truly… you have been my master, my guru
You have taught me all and then a few,
An alchemist and a magician, to my daily blues.
Now let me,
In this world of grey moods of darker hues,
And in maze of rocks and shifting sands,
Allow me... let me navigate you through those gently;
If only you would clasp my outstretched hands.

Laws of Successful Marriages...

1^st Law: Law of Decision Making:

This is the most most most important law for a successful marriage. This would lay a strong foundation on which a solid marriage is built and also the other laws have been scripted. This law is fairly known and practiced all over by men; and has been found the most passed on advice from much-harried men to the man-on-the-threshold-of-marriage.

The law states thus: “Never, never let the women take important decisions. Important decisions are the domain of men. Women should only take very minor and unimportant decisions”. For example, the decision of what one’s country’s foreign policy should be, decision around the constitutional amendments, the composition of the nationals team, what should be the country’s fiscal budget is unequivocally the domain of men. Women of the household have no say in it – men decide it. However, all the unimportant decisions such as what should be the color of the blinds, what the furniture should look like, the paint colors should be that of women’s. Men typically should not worry about those.

2^nd Law: Law of Financial Equality:

As they say a sound financial balance is bedrock of any relationship – be it business or personal. The same holds for a successful marriage. The financial income into the joint account should be men’s responsibility; whereas the financial outgo from the account is the responsibility of the women of the house. These two should be absolutely equal. Typically, the equation tends to change on the outgo; as the women do their part to raise the outgo, immediately, the men are expected to do their bit to raise the income and hence endeavoring to keep the equation balanced and restore financial equality. Men do contribute to the outgo, when they tend to gather around in a place, where a bunch of them meet to decide on important things and also that of newest toys that they could lay hands on. Most women also contribute to the income these days, which makes this law a bit more complicated to balance out; and hence the 3^rd law.

3^rd Law: Law of Quick Agreements:

We all know that one of the key ingredients of a marriage is “ours” thing. Most women would like to believe about the ours, whereas men are less likely to be so. So women really like to seek agreement on decisions so that they would believe that it was “our” decision. Men on the other hand really do not care much, as long as it does not come in the way of the few key and important things that are to them – like a good TV surfing session, a good wine and depending on the age (not really), gawking at other women. Given that, the best time for women to get an agreement is when the man is watching a cricket match intently – most preferable time would be when Tendulkar is on 99, facing Shoaib Akhtar. If that’s a rarity, choose such an alternate time, such as when 'Chaiya, Chaiya' song is on, on TV with the men admiring the scenic beauty of India North East. Men will agree to anything at such times.

For men, this is a bit tougher. Since they don’t have the decision making power in the unimportant things, he needs to plan (or scheme, depending on the point of view) a lot more to get an agreement. Few of the best bets is to do something that is ‘romantic’, which scale differs based on the agreement needed – the lowest on the scale would be coming home early from work and declare that you would be cooking today and set about and try and make something that is her favourite. In the middle of the scale would be flowers, with the cooking added; and on the high-end would be something precious, plus the flowers and plus the cooking. Once done, do not assume it is the time to pop the question to get the agreement; women’s mind is much sharper than that of men. You should repeat the above acts (or such similar) for a period of 2-3 months, before you would want to seek to ask the agreement-question. Which simply means that men can get women to agree about 4 times a year; whereas women can get men to agree when cricket is played, when there is an item number on the TV, when Roger Federer is in his sublime best… you get the drift, fairly any time they choose to.

4^th Law: Law of Compromises:

Men tend to be loud from both the ends; through the day they really like to talk about all the important things and want to hold court with all their educated and well-read opinions on things that matter (refer to the 1^st law). As the night falls, they tend to get vocally quiet from that end and noisy from the other end. Women should compromise and look at persevering through this as an occupational hazard instead of providing the man with an opportunity or excuse to ask questions around the unimportant things such as expenses etc.

Women, on the other hand, are extraordinarily quick at certain times when specific situation demands so. If men decide to go out on an impulse, the women can typically get ready in about half the time they usually take to get ready. For example, if the going out is for a movie, rest assured that the couple will get to the movie; it might not be the same show that the man had planned for, but most likely the same day. This is a worthwhile compromise for the man to make; as against having to shave twice while waiting for the wife to get ready or the movie actually gets moved out after its usual run in the theatres.

5th Law: Law of Control:

Men and women like control equally; particularly remotely. Women would like control. Period. So, during the early stages of marriages, when Men are away from home, women have this high need of what the men is upto, which is natural, given men’s interest spectrum. So it is typical for women to call in once in a while say nice things to the man and then casually slip in questions about her man’s whereabouts. Men during the earlier stage of marriage mistake it to be love. As we had proved earlier, men are smart, but women smarter. As men begin to realize it is not about love, it is several years into the marriage and the pattern has been habituated; and habits die hard. One can see such instances of men in watering holes, with their mobile phones ringing at exactly the time they enter the premises – it is as if women have GPS bug installed in the men; and the man speaking to the woman in the hushed tone and slowly developing a guilt; which in fact is yet another tool for women to get to quick agreements (refer to the 3^rd Law)

Men too love control; specifically if its remote control, they would adore it. This is their one feeling of absolute control over everything they lord over – which is mostly the Television. If the attention of the men watching TV has to be got, then the first step would be to separate the remote from their hands. The men instantly go the phases of drug-withdrawal-like symptoms, some irrational behaviour and then settle down to listen, since that’s their only hope to get the remote back. The only time men feel threatened about the possession of remote control is when the son grows up and starts acquiring traits of regular man and gets into man’s territory; and fights for control of the remote. There are case-studies which shows, men have handled such usurpers with firmness much unlike the jungle rules; they have just go and buy the 2^nd TV, so that they have their own ‘remote control’

The number of laws and the understanding of individual laws themselves are evolving and I’m sure there is lot more out there. I will keep this updated as I hear more.