RamGanapathy.com

Category: Musings

  • Bulk Fiction

    “You are losing the ability to focus on things closer to you”.

    The optometrist’s diagnosis for my recurring headache sounded rather philosophical. As he prescribed reading glasses, he assured me that my eyesight is alright and this is all quite normal in the forties, and I needed to wear them only for reading.

    A couple of days later, I realised I didn’t remove them except when at sleep. It struck me then, “reading” encapsulates plenty of things one does during the day: looking at numbers and texts on my PC when at work, catching a glimpse of the twitter feed on iPhone, reading books over the weekend. Even watching TV/movies involves a bit of reading (subtitles).

    Its not just the insane amount of blue-light exposed to my eyes that was worrying. All the stuff I inhale into my mind each day. what’s going on ? And, whats going in? Beyond work, how do i control the intake of the non-essential content? I began applying some mental filters.

    Fiction vs Non-Fiction

    We could classify all the TV programs, movies, books, social media that we consume into these two buckets: fiction vs non-fiction. Imagined stuff vs reality. To be blunt, the false vs the truth.

    Why do we love watching movies when we know most of them aren’t real? Motion pictures were a revolution in the last century, as disconnected and disadvantaged people were suddenly exposed to a world full of people they had never encountered, of stories never heard before, of places they may never visit. And the information flow that would have not occurred otherwise, though laced with myths, exaggerations and influences.

    But in this age of information overflow, why do we flood our grey cells with fiction? Agreed, imagined stories are fun while most documentaries are boring. We seek drama, meaning, pleasure and escape from reality. Movies and novels deliver those.

    There is another reason why acclaimed writers prefer fiction. Arundhati Roy, a Man Booker Prize winner and a fearless political activist, says she gets more creative liberty (and less trouble from the mob) as she indulges in fiction to tell a real story. In that sense, she claims fiction isn’t untruth. The reader is smart enough to relate to and reflect on the characters and derive their own meanings.

    No wonder these imagined movies and novels leave us emotionally richer and mentally relaxed. Albert Einstein wanted us to remember, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”, and sure enough, many sci-fi novels and movies paved the way for real scientific breakthroughs.

    How about we dabble with a bit of reality? Alas, we are surrounded by the cacophony of news, political events, wedding announcements of celebrities, and cat videos. The irrelevant and ugly truth presented to us each day are the very reasons we run away to a fictitious, imagined world.

    True Stories

    However, it is important to run into the real world from time to time, not away from it. Its not a strain, believe me. There are heaps of true, inspiring stories in the form of documentaries, biographies, podcasts and news. You could start with any domain: sports, science, lives of ordinary, unknown people.

    I indulge in watching test match cricket and tennis(especially when Federer plays). I love the commentary, particularly the way Ian Chappell brings better words to describe the same event I had witnessed. And the words and perspectives of the film critic Baradwaj Rangan are more entertaining than the movie itself.

    A few years ago, i enjoyed watching the documentary, making of Lagaan (Oscar-nominated movie) as much as the movie itself, if not more. The reel drama about a bunch of villagers achieving the impossible bet of winning a cricket match against the British officials, is more than matched by the real life struggle of a passionate (and crazy) team attempting to make a movie in an unforgiving desert.

    If you are intimidated by the term quantum mechanics or multiple universe, watch this fantastic animation story about the famous Young’s double-slit experiment about the nature of light. God, if such videos were available during our school-years. If you want a more entertaining science story, check this out: the story of how man walked from the jungles of Africa all the way across different parts of the world.

    There is this uplifting story of an ordinary bloke, Barry “Nugget” Rees, who never played cricket as such but became accepted as part of the Australian cricketing fraternity, that makes you look at these cricketers in such a positive light (this was before the sand-paper scam).

    Living in the age of fake news, we are permeated by maya(Sanskrit for illusion). The more we filter out the trivial stuff and focus on the what-if’s and aha-moments, the richer we become.

    I came across this quote some time ago: Small minds discuss People; Average minds discuss Events; Great minds discuss Ideas.

  • Philosophy lessons when waiting in a queue

    I watched my dad’s eyes as he took in the sights and (lack of) sounds of a new place (parents visiting us here on a short trip to Australia), as I took him out for a drive to a shopping mall, on the very day we landed. Later that day he remarked how well people were following the queue – whether one is driving on a busy road or waiting for the turn to pay. He was impressed by the absence of irritation or restlessness shown by the people waiting – and particularly the person at the counter who did not pay attention to any one else than the person in front.

    This resembles my own experience during my first trip abroad, to The Netherlands. I too noticed how everyone patiently waited for their turn at a doctor’s clinic, without any fuss, though being unwell.

    We get used to queues and waiting situations from the day we are born. There is an order and sequence to everything; At school and at home, we are taught to wait. However, when we are among a crowd of people wanting the same thing at the same time, the raging animal inside us tests our discipline and social manners.

    Manners were the last thing I worried about during my first near-death experience while waiting in a long queue at a movie hall, many years ago. With my cousins and friends I was thrilled initially, as we got permission to go by ourselves – and been given some money to spend. We decided to buy the cheapest ticket and had spent away the rest of the money, eating some junk. The queue was benign and orderly until when the ticket counter opened. There was a sudden rush behind us. Some strongly built and goon-like men were jostling us inside the closed corridor, which was covered on the one side with a brick wall and a steel fence on the other. My shoulders hurt – as I felt a leg clamped on me; one of my cousins screamed for help. There was no way out of that cramped space, and going back was most definitely not a viable option. We survived the stampede that day, and got our prize: a ticket to watch a fantastic movie.

    Key take-away: when people say they don’t quit or when they are called “finishers”, perhaps they didn’t have any other choice.

    I promised some philosophy in the title and here it is, but you will encounter some mathematics first.

    When you see two queues with the same number of people, you hope to choose the one which gets you faster. How many times have you been left frustrated being stuck in the “wrong” queue? Don’t stress. Murphy’s law states, “If something can go wrong, it will”. Extending that to queueing, this blog tries to analyse and explain using probability theory, that essentially, “Whatever queue you join, no matter how short it looks, it will always take the longest to you to get served.”

    You learn that all queues lead to the same result. This is not very different from the core of Hindu philosophy: Any of the four paths can lead you to attain Moksha (enlightenment and liberation): Bhakti Yoga (Devotion), Karma Yoga (Action), Gnana Yoga (Knowledge), Raja Yoga (Meditation).

    From queues to spiritual progression: that’s a giant leap of thought, you say. If you are not the spiritual type, I have some practical lessons to survive a queue.

    I once had to wait for six hours in a queue to submit my application for a passport. My uncle dropped me at 6 am on an already hot and humid Chennai morning. A friend who had endured this previously had advised me to take some snacks and also gifted me a novel. I didn’t possess the patience or interest to read a non-academic book. I started watching people and tried looking at the blue skies, chirping of birds and the horns and smells of morning traffic (the office opened only at 9). The guy in front of me struck a conversation, which soon turned into an interview: where are you from? why do you need a passport when you are not even twenty? where are you planning to travel? I mumbled and stumbled for a while and then took a decision that changed my life. No, I didn’t kill him. I took the book out, sat down on the floor and devoured it. Weeks later, I received my passport, but in the meanwhile i got addicted to thick, fat novels.

    Lesson: what you do when you have nothing else to do, defines you.

    Sometimes, you wont even know where a queue begins, moving towards or ends. It is best to leave it to chance, rather than to put any mental effort. For instance, if im lazy, I stick to the same lane when driving, even if the next lane is free.

    This strategy won’t always work.

    Once during a family trip to the historic Charminar monument, we joined a queue going to the top of one of the minarets. Twenty minutes of slow paced movement on a circular staircase took us to a narrow space at the top. I was intrigued by another queue that began from where we just finished. I thought to myself, this might lead to a nice spot to take some pictures. People moved much slower than during the climb. It was too late when we realised, we were actually on the queue that goes down back to the ground. Now, don’t tell me, it is the journey that matters and not the destination.

    Insight: Don’t be surprised to find yourself where you started. Life is a circle.

    Back to that day in the doctor’s clinic in the Netherlands. My stomach (and other related organs) were struggling to deal with the new diet. A colleague booked me a doctor’s appointment and arranged for a taxi.

    I arrive to find the room crowded with patients seated ahead of me. Across the room, I see the doctor’s face whenever the door opens to let a patient in or out. A glimpse of my to-be-saviour. An hour later, I am unable to sit straight, shivering with some fever as well. When you are sick, the time moves slowly.

    The receptionist was busy. I ask myself, should I explain my situation and beg her to let me ahead of others. I remind myself, im in a different country, and I better stick to the ways and systems here. There is no need to worry.

    I get more hopeful as I see the last person left in the room being called. When he comes out fifteen minutes later, im relieved. The doctor’s door is kept fully open now. He looks tired and stretches his back. He picks up a book and begins reading it seriously. I stare at him hoping he will make eye contact. The receptionist comes to me with a strange look in her eyes and asks my name. She doesn’t pronounce it well but checks her records. She makes some phone calls, while I am left to wonder what’s going on. She then confirms the worst, even as the doctor continues to flip many more pages.

    I had reached the wrong clinic.

    I don’t find any lessons in this experience. I was just stupid not to have checked with her as soon as I arrived.

  • To find a problem to solve…

    I was so bored towards the end of the day during a short, official trip to Wellington last year that I started reading my own blogs. I soon ventured into my journal entries. For more than a year now, I have been diligently jotting down anything that comes to mind – thoughts, tasks, worries, ideas, incidents, insights – in a spreadsheet. A lot of stuff from work, home and social life.  It has been a game changer for me. Many of my blogs have been composed of these random notes. I also learn so much about myself.

    What struck me was, its all about me, “my” world: my family, my work place, my friends and acquaintances. I wondered if and when would I ever find time or energy to even think about the issues of others – those not related to me personally or professionally.

    No, im not talking about throwing some money away for a charity. I am referring to the act of utilising our knowledge, skills, network and time to create something to make a small difference in someone’s life.

    I didn’t know where to start. I had tried to look for volunteering activities previously: signed up for a mentoring gig but soon realised it was not fully engaging me. While I did not seek additional stress beyond what was already produced by work and life, I still wanted to push myself a bit intellectually.

    I was searching for opportunities when I got reminded of this advice from Arunachalam Muruganandam – the grass roots innovator of low cost sanitary napkins for rural India – when he spoke as part of the panel that included Bill Gates, addressing the “great challenges facing the world” or something like that (scroll to 50 min into this video). “Don’t look for opportunities. Opportunities are lying in the form of problems. Take a problem, use your knowledge and be a solution provider”.

    Think about people whose occupation is all about troubleshooting and fixing others’ problems: doctors, car mechanics, plumbers etc. Even astrologers and godmen. Though many of these professionals perform this as part of a transaction, there is a hierarchy among them in terms of value and respect accorded by the society. Medical professionals would be at the top of this pyramid, since we trust them with our lives. In my own experiences, I have often admired their ability to deal with our problems while being surrounded by a stressful environment.

    However, the kind of problem solving I was thinking about was different: one that came with no obligation, expectation or judgement. Should inspire me, test me, but with no time pressure involved.  Just the pleasure of doing something useful. Where no one’s watching me.

    The previous week, I had watched a reality TV program which featured a kid from a poor family who was also blind. He sang so beautifully. That took me back to the school days and I remembered once writing a test on behalf of a visually impaired classmate (he would speak the answer to me and I would write it, verbatim). I had always wondered how he would read books which didn’t have the braille version.

    I began a search in google: “Coimbatore blind”. It’s my hometown, after all. Clicked on the first link – which was a video interview with Mr. Saravanan who had sight until he was an adult but lost his vision completely over a period of time. I found his number from the video and called him. He spoke to me about his challenges to become physically and financially independent. About how he was promised many things by many people, organisations and the government, over the years. Though he had received some support and assistance, he felt he could achieve a lot further. He never gave up though. Living with his parents, he is independent however, running a coaching centre in the outskirts of Coimbatore, offering students a whole bunch of things: yoga, spoken English, communication skills, spiritual advice etc. He has a computer and a smart phone which help him get connected to the world.

    I explained my background and the intention to help him in some way I could. His expressed his main challenge as being missing out on reading books. Only a small percentage of books have the braille version. He narrated his difficulties in having to travel some distance to read a book of his choice, but the library’s text-to-speech reader device was available only intermittently.

    I found the problem I was looking for.

    As an IT person, I thought it should be so easy to solve this problem. After all, Apple devices, Kindle and so many apps offer AI capabilities (SeeingAI from Microsoft, for instance) and surely, it must be possible for him to just place a device on top of the page and listen on.

    Alas, it was not so simple. Obviously, not all books are available in the digital form. Definitely, not all Tamil books. I also realised, many of these technologies are proprietary, expensive and worse, not so reliable. Even otherwise, how would he read the contents of a letter posted to him?

    After a month of research, I resigned to the fact that I just have to buy him the right product. A time-tested and reliable reading device (Pearl) which is used in schools and universities across the world. I also ordered the software that supports Tamil character recognition. It was a challenge for Saravanan to get this installed and configured all by himself, talking over the phone with the Mumbai based dealer that shipped the device. He later told me the Tamil OCR software didn’t work at all. Nevertheless, he was beginning to read English books.

    It was a bit disappointing in the end that I couldn’t solve his problem fully; and the way I wanted to. With my skill, knowledge and all that. Living at the other end of the world, I was only able to afford some time and money.

    It has been a year now. I try to keep in touch with him and occasionally call him. Earlier this month, during our trip to India, my wife and I met him face to face for the first time.

    He “read” us a page from a book that was kept under the scanner.

  • Chasing faint memories from a distant past

    These days, im spending more time in the past. Not sure if that’s due to reduced anxiety levels I have about the future. As you might have noticed from my blogs, I’m a sucker for nostalgia. The further I travel to the left of the timeline however, the more intriguing and demanding it becomes, since it is a struggle to recall events from the baby years of my life.

    It strikes me that I don’t think much about my (paternal) grand father these days. Maybe since my grandma filled the space – she continued the journey with us for thirty three more years. I don’t even have his picture at my new home.

    I feel compelled to write about him. For the sake of my kid who will otherwise know much less about her ancestors. And for my own sake. I borrowed his name, after all.

    I will start with what I have. A few incidents and images of him are indeed registered in my head.

    I remember him walking me from the school. Wait. No, he is lifting me up on his hips as he collects me from the primary school, walking back home along the road. He does not talk much. I remember him being tall. When you are a kid, everyone else looks taller. Gee! I don’t recall much more of him.

    Then, I get flashed with another image: We are somewhere a temple in Ernakulam, standing on the elevated slab / base which has a big tree. I see my aunt (his daughter) teasing him to jump to the ground. My grandpa ignores the challenge stating he could have readily done that, if he was a bit younger.

    Now, that is amazing. I don’t think anyone narrated this incident to me. When you really scratch your head, the grey cells do play out a scene from the past. If you think I am hallucinating (I hope I am not), take a look at the recent breakthroughs in neuroscience, about the way we remember the past and recollect from our memory.

    But I cannot forget the day he passed away. I was just seven years old. In the morning, I was sent to school and don’t remember if I had said “bye” to him. Later, I watched my uncle walk in to the classroom requesting my teacher to let me go home early. I saw a crowd of relatives and neighbours in the very small living room. I see “him” lying on the floor. There were many other aspects of that day that clouds my memory, but I remember this weird feeling, as clear as sky: I tried to cry like everyone else, but couldn’t.

    He was not known for displaying his emotions. A shy and often silent person that he was, he had a tough life. I try to recall the narrations I have heard as a child from my father, about his dad’s life:

    My grandpa’s family owned a restaurant near the bus station in Erode. As an independent adult, he ran the kitchen in the weekly train between Erode and Ernakulam and must have impressed a certain gold merchant who decided to get his last daughter married to this tall and handsome man.

    Moving to the city of the bride, he sets up his own restaurant in the main streets of Ernakulam. Not much later, he faces revolt within the larger family which unfortunately leads to the sale of his only asset. With cooking as his only skill and, faced with limited opportunities in that small city, he takes up the job of the chief-cook in the same shop.

    I wonder how he felt that day he was downcast as an employee from being an employer . It must have crushed him. Not surprising then to learn that he packed his bags, took his wife and son (my dad) to a bigger city:Coimbatore. There he would work for many hotels and eateries – some of them still thriving even today. He has made dosas in Bombay Ananda Bhavan, spun jelabis during Diwali, delivered pooris to students by 6 am, served the canteen at the famous Central theatre, together with a coffee specialist who later became a famous restaurateur.

    I asked my father why grandpa had to change so many jobs. It seems he flinched and revolted often against people in the kitchen who were lazy and indifferent about quality and hygiene. He once threw an entire vessel of sambar down the drain when he spotted a floating insect. The next dish he cooked was weeks later, in a different hotel, several kilometres away which he had to cover by foot. Those long walks continued for some years.

    My grandma somehow managed to run the show during intermittent job “breaks”. The four children growing up and taking odd jobs even as they were finishing studies, also helped.

    The only regret we all have is, by the time the family clawed back to the middle class level, he had left us. He didn’t see the first black-and-white TV we bought. He wasn’t around when we watched our first movie at home at 10 pm (African Safari). He didn’t get a chance to push a button on a machine that would crush rice and deliver flour in an hour – relieving him from the physical pain of handling a manual stone mill grinder. And he didn’t answer the first phone call we would receive at home. He missed the convenient motor bike rides. He didn’t sit in my car.

    I feel guilty from not retaining him in my mind. But it is actually worse: I miss the chance of a meaningful conversation with him. That would have added some colour to the teenage years of me and my sister. Even for today, as I deal with tricky questions on career and life as such. A man who lived for 67 years, migrated to various cities, walked much distance, silently and on barefoot, fed hundreds of thousands of mouths, would definitely have something to offer. It feels like I am missing an important book from my library.

    I will need to explore, talk to uncles and aunts. A bit more about my grandpa’s lineage might be even more interesting. The ancestry might be traced to one of the agraharams (village) in Palakkad. I vaguely recall an incident narrated by my dad about someone (grandpa’s uncle?), a police constable who lost his hands while trying to arrest illicit-liquor vendors during a night raid. That explains why grandpa, his brothers and cousins chose to arm themselves with cutlery instead.

    TN Seshan, a famous son of the Palakkad soil, the man who revolutionised the way elections are conducted in India, says, “Palakkad is famous for producing cooks, crooks and civil servants”.

    My grandfather was a cook. My father retired as a civil servant. That leaves me in a strange predicament.

  • True (rep)lies and the art of answering

    When the angry professor questioned my friend, why he had not worn the mandatory dull grey shirt and the uglier trousers (called the “lab uniform”) for the Electronics Laboratory class that day, I sensed we were going to witness an embarrassing conversation. We had seen and heard many different excuses tried out by others, with limited success, only to be subjected to further probing and public demeaning.

    I vaguely remember my friend’s reply now, after so many years. The truthful, detailed account that stumped everyone – and certainly convinced the professor who had no further questions.

    What about situations where we are not under pressure ?

    For instance, it is easy for me to respond a simple question from my colleague, “How was your weekend?” with an answer “Great!” – which is good enough for a coffee-corner chat. But if I really care to give a proper response, a truthful reflection on that question might reveal some finer (and boring) details about my life – how I struggled to finish grocery shopping in time, having gotten up too late on that Saturday morning and the fact that I simply did “nothing” on Sunday – lazing around, watching a stupid movie. I might realise, I need to do something worthwhile during weekends in order to offer a better response. But the other day, when I narrated to my colleague exactly those trivial things I did on the weekend, he simply loved it – especially the “doing nothing” bit. A more meaningful chat ensued, about how our lives are never free of responsibilities and that it is not feasible to “do nothing” unless we manage to stop the passage of time.

    A true answer or an excuse sounds weird but it can work sometimes. That’s my interpretation of the famous Copy Machine Study, where a student is asked to jump the queue of people waiting to get their turn to use a copy machine. In the first experiment, he is asked to tell the first person, “Excuse me, may I use the machine?”. No reasons to be given. In the next experiment, he expands, “Excuse me, may I use the machine, because I’m in a rush?”. In the third experiment, he is asked to state, “Excuse me, may I use the machine, because I want to make copies?”. Guess which version had the most success rate (in terms of being allowed to skip the queue). While the second one was the most successful, the third version had almost an equal amount of success. Due to the magic word “because”, as Robert Cialdini explains, “…when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.”

    I too was once looking for a strong reason; to apply leave and travel back home from the onsite location as my family, especially my daughter was missing me a lot during those four months. Phone calls every night usually ended with my daughter wondering, when I would be back. It was a tough call to make for me: on the one hand, my whole team was toiling away; as a project lead, I could not be seen retreating until we got the job done. On the other hand, well, my daughter was missing me. It became easier however, on a particular day when she went to bed early and conveyed through her mom that she is all ok and cheerful and she understood that dad would be away for a long time.

    I flew back home that very weekend, having provided a stronger reason for the two-weeks leave request which was approved promptly: my daughter was no longer missing me.

    The next time you are asked for a reason or when you are about to offer an excuse, try looking for the flash of truth.

    PS: This was my friend’s reply to the professor as far as I can remember. “I had given the clothes for ironing to the dhobi (washerman) last weekend and when I went to collect them yesterday, I found his shop closed and I learnt that he has gone on a pilgrimage only to return after three days.”

  • Can you please pass that insult ?

    Getting up at 5 am on a Saturday and in front of the laptop without even the customary cup of coffee? The wife was startled and wondered what’s gotten to me. That, I would learn for myself a few hours later, as I finished authoring a detailed analysis of the project situation along with some suggestions to mitigate risks. When I pressed the Send button, the email carried more than just the slide deck I had attached. It also took away the residual feeling of something I struggled to put into words the whole night: Why did these guys exclude me from recent discussions?

    We all face situations where we have been left out. What we do in those situations determine who we really are. It tampers with our ego, causes a bit of anger and we take offence. Whether we are part of a team that builds a space ship or if we are jockeys racing horses, or simply playing a game together, sometimes the ingredient that stimulates us to produce an inspiring result is not the respect, trust, or love from others. It just might be an ounce of insult passed on to our side of the table.

    Recently my (now “ex”) tennis doubles partner asked me to consider not turning up for the finals we were going to play in a level three tournament in a modest club in our small city. That way he can partner with a reserve player to increase the chance of winning. (The irony was lost on him that I beat him in a singles match just the previous night). I didn’t go and I still don’t know whether they won. But I knew that was the end of that strange “friendship”. Have I become more serious about tennis? Oh boy! I began playing more often and I even try that single-handed cross-court backhand shot once in a while, forgetting I’m still an amateur who is yet to learn how not to dance while hitting the ball.

    I am not a saint, though. And this has to come out of the system today: I did contribute to someone becoming an inspired table tennis player many years ago by means of my disrespectful behaviour.

    At the end of a relaxed day at work in the Hyderabad office, I was busy playing a game with another colleague. I didn’t pay attention to my friend as he appeared near the table. He was still learning to hold the racket and here I was already able to move the ping pong ball across the net. My colleague and I continued to play games without giving a chance to my friend who waited for an hour in vain. Six months later he surprised (shocked!) me by beating the blues out of me. And sixteen years later he is still a friend (I hope).

    Getting rejected is an awful feeling. Not being given a chance is criminal. Alas, nature does that all the time. It also teaches us how to thrive.

    As a year 10 student, with my eyes looking at an unknown future (I was caught looking outside the window regularly), I was intrigued by this question posed by our class teacher: what do we want to do next?. “I want to prepare for the IIT entrance exams” (the premier engineering institution in India). It was not the laughter from my class mates that put me down. The teacher’s discouraging words: “Son, I don’t think you can do it” pushed me down but only momentarily. Two years later, I eventually failed to get into IIT. But those two thousand hours I spent preparing for that exam, prepared me for the future. In the end, the good old man’s words only increased my appetite to aspire.

    In the climax of the film Seabiscuit (name of the horse), the jockey is on his most important race of his career. The horse and the jockey are injured. They needed more than mere motivation to win. Then he comes with this trick: he asks his friend who is another racer to help by bringing his horse close to Seabiscuit during the race; close enough to tease and “give a look” at Seabiscuit in his eye. Those few seconds were just enough for the trailing Seabiscuit to get spurred and race to victory.

    We all need a kick in the back once in a while. It is a cliché but it sounds nice in this context: when you fall you better try to fall forward. We don’t know why we react the way we do when we are pushed. We cannot describe much in words or convince our loved ones. We choose and avoid some of the battles. But the scars choose us and we remember. We then do the only thing that makes sense when slighted or insulted.

    We fight.

  • To carry an oil lamp to buy a trash bin

    The task was simple that evening, many years ago. We were four classmates beginning a new chapter in our lives: out of home, first job, new city, new apartment and the world to conquer. Two of us had to go get a trash bin for the house. The shop wasn’t far away and I wouldn’t complain anyway since this guy is quite a talker. He can explain the planets and cosmos while in the same breath turn philosophical or venture into the weird ways of the human mind. He once asked me, “think, what if you vanish one day and no one in this world remebered you”. We start walking the 300 metres to the bazaar. We see a small temple on the side of the road and he beings to wonder why religions exist in this world. I try to tell him we better hurry up before it rains.

    The small road leads to the bigger road at the intersection. We only had to cross the signal to get to the home furnishing shop. But then we see this new music shop crop up on our left and we walk right into it. This guy had introduced the western pop genre to me. And as someone used to listening mainly south Indian film music, the name savage garden sounded more like a filthy place full of violent beasts than a music album (until I fell in love with the animal song). With a couple of new music cassettes (it was 1999; CDs will come much later) as we started walking back home, we both realized our folly. We started telling each other how stupid it felt to be forgetful and wandering away from the simplest task of buying a waste bin . We discussed the root causes while at the same time began fearing the ridicule from the other two waiting for us.

    Why do we forget things and miss out on simple tasks or goals? Are we not serious enough? I am not even talking about life changing goals. Simple tasks that doesn’t need much thinking or planning. The office receptionist was laughing at me the other day, while making alternative arrangements as I had lost my id card and car park access card on consecutive days. I still don’t know where I kept them but I do recollect the thought stream in which I was drowned in during those days.

    Life as a tourist:

    Nassim Taleb has popularised the french word flâneur which loosely means wandering, idling or being explorative. It describes a tourist (who does not have a fixed itinerary) as opposed to a tour guide (who has mapped out a plan). Taleb explains the need to have a variety of options in life, career etc., so that you can take decisions opportunistically at every step, revising schedules or changing destinations. In the words of Yogi Berra “if you don’t know where you are going, you will end up somewhere else.” What if “somewhere else” turns to be more interesting and lucky?

    I feel strange when people talk about a one-year goal, three-year vision, five-year target etc. I never thought I would be in an IT job even a year before joining my first job when I was only worried about getting good grades in the electronics degree. You have no clue where you going most of the time but you usually have some sense of direction. I used to be quite stressed out about not being able to control the outcomes and worry about slipping away from the “plan”. These days, I only keep a view on the high level goals and leave the steps to its own dynamics.

    It feels like freedom as I go unstructured and unplanned once in a while, loosing myself into the world of new information, people, random corridor conversations, unexpected outcomes etc. It is OK since it feels more human and real. There is a parable about a guru teaching his disciple about methods of focussing the mind. He hands him a lamp brimming with oil that could spill if shaken even a tiny bit, and instructs him to walk around the temple. When the student succeeds at the daunting task, the guru asks him if he had a chance to marvel at the scenery: chirping of the birds in the tree, the smell of fresh flowers in the pond or the aesthetics of the temple. The student blinks as the guru points out the ultimate skill: the need to experience the world around as we focus on the task at hand.

    But 19 years ago, as my friend and I were walking on a road to buy a trash bin, we didn’t have to carry an oil lamp. As we were talking, we soaked-in the sights, smells and the sounds and lost ourselves in them. The trash bin remained in the shop.

    The other two roomies couldn’t control their laughter as we narrated our yet another failure to “get things done”. We told them how much we had been cursing at ourselves for being so absent-minded. Until when one of them wondered out loud, “when you guys started self-pitying, why didn’t it occur to you to just turn around, cross the road and walk into that bin shop?”

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  • One Word Answer

    “What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?”. “Forty Two”, replied the supercomputer Deep Thought, in the science fiction comedy, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I thought it was a joke when I watched this movie many years ago. A joke I wouldn’t understand.

    I am not known for keeping my responses crisp and short. You see, I already used two words to describe my predicament. It is my usual attempt to answer more than what the questioner might want to know. At work, I have been “advised” by my colleagues and managers to keep it simple. I am still trying.

    Some of us are able to pack a lot of content in the span of a few words. When we say less, it can also sound mysterious and can sometimes work in our favour.

    It isn’t funny however, when there is space for just one word while addressing matters of emergency. Fire fighters and police officers have a chance to shout a few words as they deal with life-and-death situations. Take for instance the recent death of a bungee jumper as she fell at the wrong time, when the instructor with poor English knowledge said “No jump” which she heard as “Now jump”. Or take the case of the Indian businessman charged with making a bomb threat in Mumbai (Bombay, previously) as he made a phone call to the airlines before his flight. Due to a bad line, he only managed to finish a part of his sentence “BOM-DEL flight”.

    A non-life-threatening word incident came to my mind as I went nostalgic about the first few days of my career that started in Hyderabad. After a session on the basics of Enterprise Resource Planning, the trainer wanted feedback from each of the 40 odd trainees. And we had to use a single, unique word to describe how it was conducted. I was fretting as I waited in the second row for my turn since the words “Interesting”, “Useful”, “Educational” etc were already taken by the lucky first benchers. I don’t even remember what I ended up saying but I recall the exuberance in the room when the last guy mentioned a word that had more than one meaning: “Impossible”.

    And to the bewildering answer of 42 to the big question about life and its meaning –  there are many theories. The author himself admitted it was a random number, trying to lay to rest many of the stories. I liked this one, however: Turns out, the ASCII code for the wildcard character “*” is 42. Wildcards in computer programming are used to represent one or more things. That is, “whatever you want it to be”. Sounds like a good short reply to the biggest question of it all.

    But, I was shy and confused during the first few days. I wanted to talk to a lot of people, learn many things, all at once. The MD of the Hyderabad delivery unit was an awesome communicator  and a nice guy. Little did I expect him to recognise me a few days later, when he greeted me calling my name as we entered the men’s room. The awkward silence that occurred when we were taking a leak at our respective commodes was broken by his enquiry, “So…Ram, how’s it going?”.  The one word answer that I uttered in the context of training sessions lead to a few seconds of silence before we both laughed. “Smooth”, I had said.

  • The (in)decision to help

    I had always been fascinated by people who are able to throw themselves into rescuing someone in trouble, without indulging in a lot of thinking or analysing. Contrast that with people who either panic or act weird when faced with an ask to lend a helping hand. And some, in the attempt to help out end up complicating things. You wonder which category do I fall under.

    Last month, the story of a “real life ‘Spider-Man’ saving a baby dangling from a balcony”broke the internet. An immigrant from Mali living in Paris did not blink once before “climbing up four storeys” to save the child. He is seen as a national hero in France and the President has offered him citizenship. Great news, but for some reason I felt something strange.

    I knew why. Many years ago, I blinked when I could have helped a truck driver stuck in his seat after hitting a wall. It was not life-threatening and there was a already a crowd looking after him. It occurred at a village road I pass through in my motor bike ride to the Bangalore office. I was in a rush but surely, the heavens wouldn’t have fallen if I had stopped. Looking back now, I feel I could have at least offered to call someone or do something – I had a mobile phone at a time when it was still a luxury to own one.

    Figured out later, not everyone at the office behaves that way. At least not my colleague, who demonstrated calmness (and sheer guts) under stress that helped save a life. The office bus that he was travelling in, hit a cyclist who was badly hurt. The driver ran away. The bus stood in the middle of the road causing a traffic jam, while the poor soul laid gravely close to the tyres. Our man didn’t think much before lifting the cyclist into the bus and taking the wheels himself to drive to the hospital.

    This sense of guilt has never left me. I do help others but that’s not the point. Its about how I respond under pressure. Its about needing to possess both the instinct and intelligence to make a difference to a worsening situation. Though I did not encounter life-or-death incidents, even odd requests from strangers has left me stumped.

    While waiting at the café outside the Brisbane Airport on my way back from an official trip, I had a young man approach me with a request to watch his bag while he makes a quick trip to the gents room. I declined bluntly even as I noticed the couple in the next table happily oblige. Later, my colleague assured me I made the right call, especially being outside an airport: Imagine an Indian caught with a ‘bag’ by the Australian aviation security personnel.

    I did have a chance to redeem myself later that year. This too occurred in an airport and it involves my mobile phone which I failed to utilise many years ago. Waiting in the lounge (this time, inside the Canberra airport, having missed my flight) and being the only one present, I watched a lady and her kids approach me as they struggled with their heavy hand luggage. I was relieved when I figured I wasn’t asked to carry anything for them. She said her battery ran out and enquired if I would kindly offer my phone so that she could contact her husband waiting outside. I did not blink, think or analyse before graciously handing out my iPhone. She made a loud conversation in what I assumed was an African language and returned the phone expressing her gratitude.

    As I was finishing that eventful day in Melbourne, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognise. I would discover soon later that my phone had knowledge of that number, when a male voice with think accent asked me, “Man, my wife called me in the morning from this number. And I waited in the airport for long but she hasn’t turned up yet. Where is she ?”

  • …and some dharma

    This is the part II of the blog that I started writing last week.

    A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a review session involving internal auditors who checked the sales contract document authored by my colleague – a sales lead who I collaborate with by providing a significant portion of the content. What started as an innocuous discussion, turned quickly to an intense scrutiny of many sections of the document, that gave rise to multiple follow up actions and meetings for the week. It also lead to the sticky question: who is responsible for the inadequate quality of content. Made me step back and ask a few hard questions to myself.

    The glorified title I have – Engagement Manager – hides a lot of trivial activities to be carried out. For instance, it takes a hell a lot of talking, emailing, negotiating,  waiting, worrying and sometimes escalating – to get people from various teams and geographies at short notice to agree on a business proposal. My mom once asked, “You seem to be talking all day, non stop. What do you actually do?”

    My role is not trivial however. Ever since I moved into this new job function, i have been super excited by the many facets that come part of it: beyond just being an expert of my line of business, I need to bridge the world of sales and delivery. I act like a diplomat sometimes, representing the huge remote delivery organisation that I was once part of, exhibiting adequate amounts of caution and risk management during the sales process. At the same time, I keep reminding myself that I’m part of the sales set up which requires me to be a catalyst and a collaborator. I feel like a amphibian.

    While the fun derived from working with great minds across the organisation (and our demanding customers) keeps me afloat, one is constantly challenged to come up with new ideas and business models that test the limits of our current processes and, the answer relies on innovation and speed.

    Alas, speed and accuracy are not the closest of cousins. I guess I got a bit carried away with the peripherals of my job and need to focus on the core part of it. The issue at hand was not just how to fix the quality issues being reported in the document, but also why I did not check the content in prior. Though it is not always feasible to compartmentalise responsibilities between us, my initial reaction was to shift the blame. Deep down however, the lurking sense of guilt hurt me badly.

    The mind looked for an easy and lazy way out of this problem. Maybe I’m over worked and burdened with the data deluge. Who am I kidding. I’m paid to pay attention. Isn’t that the most important aspect among others? I remember reading about the sense of duty illustrated by the thousands of inspection workers of Indian Railways. Every day they walk along the vast stretch of rail tracks looking for faults, hammering away any loose bolts. They are paid a pittance for the value they create.

    The lesson learnt is to keep focussing on the signal among the noise. Easier said than done. As I scrambled to figure out how to avoid such mishaps in future, my colleague went ahead and fixed the document.

    Later that week, a useful one-on-one conversation with my manager helped conclude this episode. I briefed him on the incident and asked how I could split responsibilities with my colleague. I explained the brain fade that occurred to me, and wondered out loud if the workload and the multi-dimensional aspect of my role were key contributors. He heard me out completely and shared some suggestions. He concluded the call saying, “But your role can be described much simpler than what you think: a gate-keeper.” I also felt the words he didn’t utter. Keep the good shit in and the bad shit out.