A couple of years ago, I remember sitting on the ledge waiting for my turn at the barber’s to get my hair cut. The guy was just finishing up and it was my turn next, and I was glad the wait was coming to an end. But funny as it was, just as I stood up to make my way to the chair, the Director of institute walked in. Well, what did I know? He wanted his hair cut too. We exchanged pleasantries, and I let him take my place. The thought crossed my mind that I’d stubbornly shove him aside and rightly claim my turn. After all, I had waited for so long, and he had but just walked in. But no; instead I sat and stared at the bald patch on the back of his head and thought “Jeez, he’ll never get to see it like everyone else can. That must be a sad feeling.”
Besides all the profanities I dedicated to him under my breath that afternoon, I remember distinctly saying one other thing to myself: that when you’re in a barber’s chair, it doesn’t matter who you are. Here was the Director of an institute, in-charge of a couple of thousand people, head of a dozen committees with all the power and strings attached at all levels in the Government, plus this inter-galactical academician. Yet, for those 15 minutes under the comb and scissors (after a barrage of news-reports saying ‘under the knife’, I didn’t want to feel left behind), he was literally a nobody on that chair, and if I may say so, was at the mercy of the man wielding the scissors.
They say humans are protective about their space bubble, i.e we all carry around us a three dimensional boundary and everyone we come in contact with is kept beyond the periphery of this imaginary bubble. This explains why we get uncomfortable when someone gets too close to us while talking. As adults, a few exceptional cases when this bubble is burst, and we ‘let people in’ is while kissing, while at the hairdresser’s chair and at the doctor’s table. I will get off this topic right here, and recommend that you read Allan and Barbara Pease’s Body Language if you’re a seeking a deeper explanation into this bubble thing. But now, back to barbers (I’m told this word is on its way out. We call them hair-dressers these days.)
This monsoon, I found myself screaming each time I came out of the bath and dried my hair. Invariably, I kept getting shown that there was a good chance the towel had more hair than my head. Now, I’m one of those who does a laugh-out-loud when I see the before and after ads for hair regrowth therapy. And, I certainly wasn’t readying myself to model in those ads anytime. Hence, my predicament drove me to the trichologist, and these guys always scare you. They somehow convince you that if you don’t take their remedy which costs an arm and a leg, you’ll go bald before you leave the clinic. But in my case, the Doc (it’s funny that the first thing one always looks at is the tricholigist’s hair) sent me away saying I had a scalp infection which was triggering all that shedding and that, besides medications, I had to keep a clean ‘zero’ look for the next three months.
Which brings me back to barber angle of this narrative: there are 2 hair dressing salons within walking distance of where I live. Let’s say they are called B1 and B2 (I like fighter jets, but let’s not deviate). B1 has been cutting my hair since I was in class 1. I’ve been to B2 only once in the past, because he’s just opened recently. B1 is the guy who’s been running the place before Bangaloreans were swimming in money, and hence, there’s no air-conditioning, no cable TV and no fancy chairs in his store. For the price one pays, all you get is a tattered Women’s Era (yes, girls, for some reason, that’s what every men’s hairdresser keeps to entertain his audience while they wait), the Kannada daily all scrummy and the sheets hanging loose, good old scissors and comb, and the cheapest available shaving cream, after-shave moisturizer and talcum powder. In most cases, the hair cutting machine is broken. B2, given that he’s opened only in these yuppie times, is a kid of the new generation of air-conditioners, Tata sky, fancy push back chairs, and ergo, hair-raising rates. But he still maintains the same genre of magazines I told you about.
Dr. Tricho’s instruction to get my head shaved had me in a spot. This was about putting the blade to the scalp, and I wanted to make sure it was done right. I disregarded all sense of loyalty and ditched Mr. B1 and decided to go to Mr. B2’s 'sanitised' salon. There was only one trouble though- to get to B2’s salon, I had to walk past B1’s. And as I did so, Mr. B1 himself was seated on a stool outside his shop on the sidewalk, and pleasantly wished me good day. I guess he noticed the hair on my head. That’s what barber’s do, right: they notice the hair on your head just like cobblers are always looking at people’s feet. I got my head shaved at B2’s whilst enjoying the temperature controlled setting coupled with forgivable annoying numbers being played by one of the dozen radio stations. I paid him a handsome sum (I have no problems skipping meals if my money can instead buy me the looks), and walked into the afternoon feeling conscious about my shaved head, somehow thinking that everybody on the street was looking at my bald head. I had my head down, looking at the path and humming a tune, that I forgot I still had to pass by B1’s store to get back home.
I walked past B1 rather mindlessly, but I smiled at him nonetheless. This time, he didn’t return the greeting and instead turned the other way. I got home wondering what could have made him unhappy. Maybe it was the tea he drank; boy, we get some bad tea here in this city.
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Friday, August 6, 2010
The gap between good and bad
When I heard her say for the first time “what does ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mean? what is good and what is bad?”, I stared back with a blank expression not knowing how to handle a question like that. It seemed like a trick question for all I could see; one of those questions that breaks into a silence and anything the respondent says thereafter is either incorrect or incomplete. Luckily this time, it was a rhetorical one and the answer soon followed from her.
“Good and bad is what WE define: the society. But if you look at it, there is really no good and bad in this world. It’s about how we look at it.” I think she went on for the next ten minutes elaborating on this worldly issue of perceptions. I must have trashed it as pop-philosophy then, now that I come to think of it. But in keeping the subject of good and bad going, I see two cases that are clearly presented to my mind where one could put the two words into context in a way that it has a fair deal of meaning. One is of ‘intentions and actions’ and the other being ‘subject and environment’.
Intentions and Actions
I’m currently involved in a project wherein we’re putting together the largest Clean-room in an academic institution in the country. While the construction is happening, the designs for the subsystems (like water supply, fire suppressants and so on) undergo continuous changes and is a work-in-progress, as you would know if you were an architect, a civil engineer, or simply knew the ways of the business. In one of our weekly reviews with the contractor, we were just not pleased with the fact that he had deviated from the frozen design, albeit a small one, without prior notice. This argument started, went back and forth, and finally settled. At the end, the contractor said in his defense “We only have good intentions for you”.
He had hardly finished the line, and a professor who was part of the design team flew at him. “Haven’t you heard my favourite saying?” he asked.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
I guess the penny dropped for the contractor, and a prolonged silence implied he had got the point.
Why does this happen all the time? For long, I maintained that my Uncle held the copyrights to the line “I’ve always had good intentions.” Though I never brought it up with him, I often wondered if that were to be true, why are the actions not in line with ‘good intentions’?
Which do I more trust in and buy into- the good intentions or the bad actions? Some would call it ‘walking the talk’, but call it what you will, it’s a gap in what we wish to do and what we do that baffles others, but rarely bothers us! Ask any child whose parent declared they loved the child and yet somebody went home in the evening after school having to lie about their test grades for a variety of reasons that are irrelevant to this theme.
Subject and Environment
There’s the story of the famous violinist Joshua Bell who stood on a busy street in Washington D.C at peak hour in the day playing on his $ 3 million violin. In their haste to get to work, hardly any one took notice, and by the end of 45 minutes of playing, all he could show was about 32 dollars in collections in his hat that was laid out. Just a couple of weeks earlier, he had played to a packed audience of a few thousands at a landmark auditorium in the same city.
Environment makes the man. This idea is as old as the hills. But when you think about it, environment really makes the man; or the woman. A friend and I recently co-authored an article for a college magazine. When we got the prints in our hands, we were disappointed to see the article aligned and typeset very poorly.
“It makes us looks like bad writers”, my co-author remarked and I couldn’t disagree with him.
There are several cases like this where a good subject stuck in a bad environment ends up being perceived by the outside as bad. A good student in the midst of teachers who can’t rise beyond their petty selves, a good athlete and a poor coach, a genuinely good stand up comedian (or a musician) playing to the wrong audience all end up looking not quite like what they should.
The natural order of arrangement implies that a sharp looking person, well dressed, would be taken more seriously by a stranger in an air-conditioned conference room, or a social setting of some standard, than in a flea market by the heat of the day.
There’s always a best fit for everything. When there’s a sizable gap between the quality of the subject and the quality of the environment and an optimal fit doesn’t occur, it’s best for the subject to look elsewhere for a place or a way to work things out where it feels easier and more natural. Until then, he’ll continue brushing his teeth with his left hand.
“Good and bad is what WE define: the society. But if you look at it, there is really no good and bad in this world. It’s about how we look at it.” I think she went on for the next ten minutes elaborating on this worldly issue of perceptions. I must have trashed it as pop-philosophy then, now that I come to think of it. But in keeping the subject of good and bad going, I see two cases that are clearly presented to my mind where one could put the two words into context in a way that it has a fair deal of meaning. One is of ‘intentions and actions’ and the other being ‘subject and environment’.
Intentions and Actions
I’m currently involved in a project wherein we’re putting together the largest Clean-room in an academic institution in the country. While the construction is happening, the designs for the subsystems (like water supply, fire suppressants and so on) undergo continuous changes and is a work-in-progress, as you would know if you were an architect, a civil engineer, or simply knew the ways of the business. In one of our weekly reviews with the contractor, we were just not pleased with the fact that he had deviated from the frozen design, albeit a small one, without prior notice. This argument started, went back and forth, and finally settled. At the end, the contractor said in his defense “We only have good intentions for you”.
He had hardly finished the line, and a professor who was part of the design team flew at him. “Haven’t you heard my favourite saying?” he asked.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
I guess the penny dropped for the contractor, and a prolonged silence implied he had got the point.
Why does this happen all the time? For long, I maintained that my Uncle held the copyrights to the line “I’ve always had good intentions.” Though I never brought it up with him, I often wondered if that were to be true, why are the actions not in line with ‘good intentions’?
Which do I more trust in and buy into- the good intentions or the bad actions? Some would call it ‘walking the talk’, but call it what you will, it’s a gap in what we wish to do and what we do that baffles others, but rarely bothers us! Ask any child whose parent declared they loved the child and yet somebody went home in the evening after school having to lie about their test grades for a variety of reasons that are irrelevant to this theme.
Subject and Environment
There’s the story of the famous violinist Joshua Bell who stood on a busy street in Washington D.C at peak hour in the day playing on his $ 3 million violin. In their haste to get to work, hardly any one took notice, and by the end of 45 minutes of playing, all he could show was about 32 dollars in collections in his hat that was laid out. Just a couple of weeks earlier, he had played to a packed audience of a few thousands at a landmark auditorium in the same city.
Environment makes the man. This idea is as old as the hills. But when you think about it, environment really makes the man; or the woman. A friend and I recently co-authored an article for a college magazine. When we got the prints in our hands, we were disappointed to see the article aligned and typeset very poorly.
“It makes us looks like bad writers”, my co-author remarked and I couldn’t disagree with him.
There are several cases like this where a good subject stuck in a bad environment ends up being perceived by the outside as bad. A good student in the midst of teachers who can’t rise beyond their petty selves, a good athlete and a poor coach, a genuinely good stand up comedian (or a musician) playing to the wrong audience all end up looking not quite like what they should.
The natural order of arrangement implies that a sharp looking person, well dressed, would be taken more seriously by a stranger in an air-conditioned conference room, or a social setting of some standard, than in a flea market by the heat of the day.
There’s always a best fit for everything. When there’s a sizable gap between the quality of the subject and the quality of the environment and an optimal fit doesn’t occur, it’s best for the subject to look elsewhere for a place or a way to work things out where it feels easier and more natural. Until then, he’ll continue brushing his teeth with his left hand.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Root of Hypocrisy
In the movie Cocktail, Tom Cruise works as a bar tender by evening, and is also finishing up a business degree in a local New York City College, and has high aspirations to make it big in the world of business. In one of the scenes, the teacher gives an assignment to the class to hand in a business plan. When the results come, Tom Cruise’s character Brian Flanagan finds himself with an F for his proposal of a bar franchise business. In his angst at the professor’s disapproval, he accuses to the teacher as being in academics due to lack of guts to face the outside world.
If you’re working in corporate, and for one reason or the other you do move into the academic world, the protective cocoon of the later can feel either warm and fuzzy or completely alien and unchallenging. Though both these reactions are skewed, the truth lies somewhere in the middle and can be attributed to the fact that each ecosystem comes with its inherent set of characteristics.
The corporate world attracts people from all walks of life. While many treat it as a rote job, a hungry handful pursues life here with a one-eyed maniacal focus on career growth. But in between these two extremes again are all the grades of people. If you stop and observe the behavior of folks in the rank and file of a corporation, you’ll need less than two minutes to understand that the whole system is management driven. When you begin to start managing a group of people, the black box in the picture is the passion and commitment of the members involved towards their field of work. And often, if a person isn’t passionate or committed to his work, chances are their work ethic is poor. From this you invoke one of the most used phrases of the IT era called 'slacking off’. But in academia, the situation tends be slightly different. People in this pool know they can’t be in it for the money. That in itself is huge entry barrier. Unlike the corporate world, academia is not your glamour stable. Logically then, you can’t be in it for very many reasons, not counting circumstances that forced you into it. And again, as it’s not hard to observe if you talk to ten professors and twenty PhD students, that they love their subject, and are hence passionate about it. This means that more often than not, a poor work ethic is not tolerated in the top academic and university research environments. Slacking off is for the administrative staff.
Despite the differences shown here and otherwise, there’s a common syndrome that appears in both these places (and in several other places as well) that I like to refer to as the root of hypocrisy.
The root of hypocrisy, unlike what it sounds, is not an incompetence related Peter Principle. It’s best to understand this with examples. Let’s take the corporate world first: an employee is pulled up by his boss for slacking off, and his results at work or the lack of it are questioned. This is usually the employee that gives two hoots at what is being said at team meetings, and will, on several occasions ridicule the boss’ motivational talk as being just hot air. In the event that this person is promoted and given a team to manage, all of a sudden, he now expects his subordinates to cooperate, produce results and stay motivated. He doesn’t tolerate coming in late to work and expects his people to take shorter coffee breaks. He can be seen as being completely oblivious to the fact that he himself was, until recently, an exhibition of all the above stated gray areas. In the academic environment, you can draw parallels. A professor shows little tolerance and patience to the students’ lack of understanding of a subject, notwithstanding the fact that they might have shaky basics in it, just like he/she might have had in earlier years.
We all experience such things, and some of us might be guilty of it ourselves. If you dissect the problem, you can see two entities emerging out of it. A) is what can be called as the individual’s character, and B) is what can be called the role’s character. Every individual in effect wears a hat to play a role. This could be the role of a son, a batsman, an employee, a philanthropist, a mentor, a student and the list is endless. Each role comes with a *set of characteristics* that have to be rightly followed irrespective of who’s stepping in to it. At the same time, the person who steps into the shoes of a particular job also carries with him/her a set of values or a pattern of programming that is unique to that person. When the ball (the individual) sits into the socket (the role), the dimensional constraints of the socket dictates the degree of freedom for the movement of the ball.
A straightforward example, though its mention here might seem partly out of context, is that of an actor. Jim Carey could be the funniest guy on screen in the characters he portrays, but could be a stern and stiff faced bloke in his real life. When you take this analogy and superimpose it on the cases mentioned above, you can understand the case of the employee being promoted to managing staff. The care free employee now finds himself in a role that requires him to act in a manner that is not in accordance with his real self. But for the greater good of his livelihood and that of his family's, he then subdues his inherent nature and plays to the tune of the new piper. Similar is it with the professor and the student. During my torrential teenage years, I remember reading something that I bought then as Gospel truth. It said “Parents of teenagers often behave like they had nothing to do with teenage life themselves” or something similar.
This conflict between the character of the individual and the character of the role can look very confusing from the outside, especially when a person moves through multiple roles in quick successions and takes time to grow into each role. We outsiders, not understanding the inside story, coined a word for this state: hypocrisy.
If you’re working in corporate, and for one reason or the other you do move into the academic world, the protective cocoon of the later can feel either warm and fuzzy or completely alien and unchallenging. Though both these reactions are skewed, the truth lies somewhere in the middle and can be attributed to the fact that each ecosystem comes with its inherent set of characteristics.
The corporate world attracts people from all walks of life. While many treat it as a rote job, a hungry handful pursues life here with a one-eyed maniacal focus on career growth. But in between these two extremes again are all the grades of people. If you stop and observe the behavior of folks in the rank and file of a corporation, you’ll need less than two minutes to understand that the whole system is management driven. When you begin to start managing a group of people, the black box in the picture is the passion and commitment of the members involved towards their field of work. And often, if a person isn’t passionate or committed to his work, chances are their work ethic is poor. From this you invoke one of the most used phrases of the IT era called 'slacking off’. But in academia, the situation tends be slightly different. People in this pool know they can’t be in it for the money. That in itself is huge entry barrier. Unlike the corporate world, academia is not your glamour stable. Logically then, you can’t be in it for very many reasons, not counting circumstances that forced you into it. And again, as it’s not hard to observe if you talk to ten professors and twenty PhD students, that they love their subject, and are hence passionate about it. This means that more often than not, a poor work ethic is not tolerated in the top academic and university research environments. Slacking off is for the administrative staff.
Despite the differences shown here and otherwise, there’s a common syndrome that appears in both these places (and in several other places as well) that I like to refer to as the root of hypocrisy.
The root of hypocrisy, unlike what it sounds, is not an incompetence related Peter Principle. It’s best to understand this with examples. Let’s take the corporate world first: an employee is pulled up by his boss for slacking off, and his results at work or the lack of it are questioned. This is usually the employee that gives two hoots at what is being said at team meetings, and will, on several occasions ridicule the boss’ motivational talk as being just hot air. In the event that this person is promoted and given a team to manage, all of a sudden, he now expects his subordinates to cooperate, produce results and stay motivated. He doesn’t tolerate coming in late to work and expects his people to take shorter coffee breaks. He can be seen as being completely oblivious to the fact that he himself was, until recently, an exhibition of all the above stated gray areas. In the academic environment, you can draw parallels. A professor shows little tolerance and patience to the students’ lack of understanding of a subject, notwithstanding the fact that they might have shaky basics in it, just like he/she might have had in earlier years.
We all experience such things, and some of us might be guilty of it ourselves. If you dissect the problem, you can see two entities emerging out of it. A) is what can be called as the individual’s character, and B) is what can be called the role’s character. Every individual in effect wears a hat to play a role. This could be the role of a son, a batsman, an employee, a philanthropist, a mentor, a student and the list is endless. Each role comes with a *set of characteristics* that have to be rightly followed irrespective of who’s stepping in to it. At the same time, the person who steps into the shoes of a particular job also carries with him/her a set of values or a pattern of programming that is unique to that person. When the ball (the individual) sits into the socket (the role), the dimensional constraints of the socket dictates the degree of freedom for the movement of the ball.
A straightforward example, though its mention here might seem partly out of context, is that of an actor. Jim Carey could be the funniest guy on screen in the characters he portrays, but could be a stern and stiff faced bloke in his real life. When you take this analogy and superimpose it on the cases mentioned above, you can understand the case of the employee being promoted to managing staff. The care free employee now finds himself in a role that requires him to act in a manner that is not in accordance with his real self. But for the greater good of his livelihood and that of his family's, he then subdues his inherent nature and plays to the tune of the new piper. Similar is it with the professor and the student. During my torrential teenage years, I remember reading something that I bought then as Gospel truth. It said “Parents of teenagers often behave like they had nothing to do with teenage life themselves” or something similar.
This conflict between the character of the individual and the character of the role can look very confusing from the outside, especially when a person moves through multiple roles in quick successions and takes time to grow into each role. We outsiders, not understanding the inside story, coined a word for this state: hypocrisy.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Read this if you're engaged. What the heck! Read it even if you aren't
I don’t usually think of such stuff (I mean, I do, but not aloud), but today we’re going to swing it (forgive the pun) and see where this goes. This one is about love. Any moron like me who can write so much as two sentences that makes the slightest sense hopes to write on the topic of love some day. Chetan Bhagat too vouched for this in an interview when Two States was released. And you thought I was lying about the moron part?
At my previous work place, I was one of the youngest people in the team. Most of my team mates were in their mid and late twenties. To us lads who were fresh out of college, we didn’t really connect with the old-timers. Every once in a while an engagement or a wedding invite would land up on my desk. Sometimes, it would be an e-mail invite. To know what that meant, read this post that I wrote to let the world know how exactly I felt about e-mail invites (that aren’t at least followed up with a phone call). If you happen to be one of them who sent me an e-mail invite at anytime, don’t feel embarrassed about it. I wasn’t referring to you. I’m only taking it out on the others who send such stuff.
So, further to a somewhat lengthy title and introduction, here’s what appeared to be happening to people once they got engaged. They fell in love. Only recently, my friend and I were having a talk about this: the whole premise of falling in love after being engaged. (It’s funny how guys can have very chickish conversations and live in complete denial about it.) Love-after-engagement must be a different experience compared to getting engaged after falling in love. In the second scenario, when two people fall in love (in the traditional sense), the situation is still vulnerable. It is love that is based on the assumption that things might work out as planned, but with a relatively less degree of surety. You and she are still rowing a boat with an oar that may go one direction now and another direction later. You may or may not make it to the shore. Things may or may not work out. In the love-after-engagement situation, two people (who in most cases haven’t met before) are thrust into a ferry with an engine. Their chances of making it to the shore are far greater than the people in the boat with the oar.
Any couple that is engaged has a vision of what their married life would look like. They’re thinking beyond planning the next sneak-away trip to the sea-shore or the hills that their parents won't know about. As time rolls by, this vision crystallizes and strengthens to a point where the two partners overlook any immediate flaws in the other that might potentially lead to any kind of a disruptive misunderstanding at that stage. (I borrow this concept from Dr. Scott M. Peck’s legendary book The Road Less Traveled. The second chapter on Love is probably the best 100 pages anyone has written about on this topic.)
To wrap it all up, falling in love the way we know it is certainly an adventure in its own end: a story with several opening ends where anything could happen, or anything could go wrong as Murphians like to say it. One of these endings could be getting engaged. But from what I see, the story of love that develops after getting engaged is bound to be more mature and softer simply because it grows between two people who know they can’t turn any which way from here.
My apologies for the analytical and serious undertone this write-up contains. I wish I could have given a Wodehousian touch of humor to this theme. But that would mean I’ll have to be in love with a girl to do so. Only then can you make fun of it, right? See, they weren’t entirely wrong when they said that a person is like a tea-bag; his true color comes out only when he’s put in hot water.
Love being analogous to the hot water, in case you didn’t catch up to that joke.
At my previous work place, I was one of the youngest people in the team. Most of my team mates were in their mid and late twenties. To us lads who were fresh out of college, we didn’t really connect with the old-timers. Every once in a while an engagement or a wedding invite would land up on my desk. Sometimes, it would be an e-mail invite. To know what that meant, read this post that I wrote to let the world know how exactly I felt about e-mail invites (that aren’t at least followed up with a phone call). If you happen to be one of them who sent me an e-mail invite at anytime, don’t feel embarrassed about it. I wasn’t referring to you. I’m only taking it out on the others who send such stuff.
So, further to a somewhat lengthy title and introduction, here’s what appeared to be happening to people once they got engaged. They fell in love. Only recently, my friend and I were having a talk about this: the whole premise of falling in love after being engaged. (It’s funny how guys can have very chickish conversations and live in complete denial about it.) Love-after-engagement must be a different experience compared to getting engaged after falling in love. In the second scenario, when two people fall in love (in the traditional sense), the situation is still vulnerable. It is love that is based on the assumption that things might work out as planned, but with a relatively less degree of surety. You and she are still rowing a boat with an oar that may go one direction now and another direction later. You may or may not make it to the shore. Things may or may not work out. In the love-after-engagement situation, two people (who in most cases haven’t met before) are thrust into a ferry with an engine. Their chances of making it to the shore are far greater than the people in the boat with the oar.
Any couple that is engaged has a vision of what their married life would look like. They’re thinking beyond planning the next sneak-away trip to the sea-shore or the hills that their parents won't know about. As time rolls by, this vision crystallizes and strengthens to a point where the two partners overlook any immediate flaws in the other that might potentially lead to any kind of a disruptive misunderstanding at that stage. (I borrow this concept from Dr. Scott M. Peck’s legendary book The Road Less Traveled. The second chapter on Love is probably the best 100 pages anyone has written about on this topic.)
To wrap it all up, falling in love the way we know it is certainly an adventure in its own end: a story with several opening ends where anything could happen, or anything could go wrong as Murphians like to say it. One of these endings could be getting engaged. But from what I see, the story of love that develops after getting engaged is bound to be more mature and softer simply because it grows between two people who know they can’t turn any which way from here.
My apologies for the analytical and serious undertone this write-up contains. I wish I could have given a Wodehousian touch of humor to this theme. But that would mean I’ll have to be in love with a girl to do so. Only then can you make fun of it, right? See, they weren’t entirely wrong when they said that a person is like a tea-bag; his true color comes out only when he’s put in hot water.
Love being analogous to the hot water, in case you didn’t catch up to that joke.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Rerun
Anyone that has ever written so much as a leave letter tends to go back and read what they've written.
You kept reminding me about a post that I put up in my first days of blogging in mid-2007. So I did go back and read it; and like anything old, this one too still smells fresh!
Here's Gooble-de-gook revisited:
You walk into this room. The windows are wide open. The door creaks as it sways back and forth. It’s a summer noon and it’s hot. You wish to ease those nerves. That can only mean one thing - Coldplay. Having en queued five of your favorite tracks, you put on those headphones. By now the door is shut and the curtains are drawn. Pleasant is always a few minutes away from a summer noon, if you know how to get it.
4 and a half minutes later, it’s Track 2. The first song has driven the anesthetic a little too far. When The Scientist is ‘go’, you are floating. Those aching calf muscles don’t seem to be around anymore. And it starts…
You see a little girl. She’s running in the open. It’s a vast field. And she is running. Draped in a brown skirt and checked uppers, she wears a cap to keep her hair in place. The wind is getting the better of her skirt though. She is 12, you might want to think. Why is she running? Where is she running to?
A hundred meters behind her, at a distance you can see two boys running towards the girl, who, by now you figure out, is running away from the boys. The three of them are happy to be running in the pursuit of whatever it might be. The boys are wearing shorts, btw. And one of them is blond. The other has a cap. A painter’s cap, you might say (not all painters like to wear them though.) They look 15 years apiece. And they are running, not real hard, but just enough to keep the girl at a flowing river’s width from them. She is finding this to be fun!
There’s a pond there and a towering windmill that stands by it. As she nears the pond, she looks to run harder. She goes inside. The windmill. The boys follow her.
… Could not speak as loud as my heart (faintly, at a distance).
She comes out, as you turn around in your bed. Remember, you are standing in the field. But only this time, she holds a round bottomed bottle in her hand. It has a straight neck at the top. And the cap is fastened tight. Or so you assume. Let’s see. There is scotch in the bottle, you might want to think. And she runs faster than her legs can carry her. And then you see. The girl is being chased by two rather grown up men. They must be 40 apiece. Who are these men? And what would they want from a little girl with a bottle in her hand. And then it strikes you.
Where did the two boys go? You cross the pond and go inside the windmill. It’s dark, except for the cone of sunlight that a small window at the top is permitting. You search around the cold place for the two boys. No, they aren’t there. You come out. The field is empty. There is no sign of the girl; or of the boys; or of the men. Something doesn’t seem right of the whole picture. You stop and wonder – “Did the boys become the men?” And before that question can be answered…
It’s Track 3 - Clocks.
You kept reminding me about a post that I put up in my first days of blogging in mid-2007. So I did go back and read it; and like anything old, this one too still smells fresh!
Here's Gooble-de-gook revisited:
You walk into this room. The windows are wide open. The door creaks as it sways back and forth. It’s a summer noon and it’s hot. You wish to ease those nerves. That can only mean one thing - Coldplay. Having en queued five of your favorite tracks, you put on those headphones. By now the door is shut and the curtains are drawn. Pleasant is always a few minutes away from a summer noon, if you know how to get it.
4 and a half minutes later, it’s Track 2. The first song has driven the anesthetic a little too far. When The Scientist is ‘go’, you are floating. Those aching calf muscles don’t seem to be around anymore. And it starts…
You see a little girl. She’s running in the open. It’s a vast field. And she is running. Draped in a brown skirt and checked uppers, she wears a cap to keep her hair in place. The wind is getting the better of her skirt though. She is 12, you might want to think. Why is she running? Where is she running to?
A hundred meters behind her, at a distance you can see two boys running towards the girl, who, by now you figure out, is running away from the boys. The three of them are happy to be running in the pursuit of whatever it might be. The boys are wearing shorts, btw. And one of them is blond. The other has a cap. A painter’s cap, you might say (not all painters like to wear them though.) They look 15 years apiece. And they are running, not real hard, but just enough to keep the girl at a flowing river’s width from them. She is finding this to be fun!
There’s a pond there and a towering windmill that stands by it. As she nears the pond, she looks to run harder. She goes inside. The windmill. The boys follow her.
… Could not speak as loud as my heart (faintly, at a distance).
She comes out, as you turn around in your bed. Remember, you are standing in the field. But only this time, she holds a round bottomed bottle in her hand. It has a straight neck at the top. And the cap is fastened tight. Or so you assume. Let’s see. There is scotch in the bottle, you might want to think. And she runs faster than her legs can carry her. And then you see. The girl is being chased by two rather grown up men. They must be 40 apiece. Who are these men? And what would they want from a little girl with a bottle in her hand. And then it strikes you.
Where did the two boys go? You cross the pond and go inside the windmill. It’s dark, except for the cone of sunlight that a small window at the top is permitting. You search around the cold place for the two boys. No, they aren’t there. You come out. The field is empty. There is no sign of the girl; or of the boys; or of the men. Something doesn’t seem right of the whole picture. You stop and wonder – “Did the boys become the men?” And before that question can be answered…
It’s Track 3 - Clocks.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Wikitheria
A couple of years ago, my good friend and namesake Arjun Shankar had coined the term wikitheria: a condition by which a person knows it all because he (she) has been spending too much time on wikipedia. This term sprung out of necessity since we had this particular someone in our hostel who knew all about guitar harmonics and how the C-chord synced in with the G-minor (or what ever) but had never held a guitar even once.
Most objects around us have a theoretical side to them as well as a practical side. It’s good to know all about the anti-oxidants and vitamins that an apple contains; still better to preach that one a day keeps the doctor away. Right, but how about actually DOING it? I mean, eating an apple a day continuously say for a whole month and realizing it’s benefits before barking theory.
In its pure sense, wikitheria is not a bad thing. It’s just what it is. I’m not opposed to being a walking encyclopedia. But the prophecy of preaching prophecies when one has no idea how it’s applied sure is turning off. I have been watching a fabulous video about legends from the sporting world: my daily dose of motivation. One of the featured champions is the Olympic Gold medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci, originator of the ‘perfect 10’. The video mentions that this girl put in 16 hours of practice and spent 4 hours learning theory each day.
How many people do we know who fit into the mould all f**t and no sh**? And how many of us are amongst them?
Time for a change. My apologies.
Most objects around us have a theoretical side to them as well as a practical side. It’s good to know all about the anti-oxidants and vitamins that an apple contains; still better to preach that one a day keeps the doctor away. Right, but how about actually DOING it? I mean, eating an apple a day continuously say for a whole month and realizing it’s benefits before barking theory.
In its pure sense, wikitheria is not a bad thing. It’s just what it is. I’m not opposed to being a walking encyclopedia. But the prophecy of preaching prophecies when one has no idea how it’s applied sure is turning off. I have been watching a fabulous video about legends from the sporting world: my daily dose of motivation. One of the featured champions is the Olympic Gold medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci, originator of the ‘perfect 10’. The video mentions that this girl put in 16 hours of practice and spent 4 hours learning theory each day.
How many people do we know who fit into the mould all f**t and no sh**? And how many of us are amongst them?
Time for a change. My apologies.
Monday, June 8, 2009
It’s all in the blood
While Malleswaram sits still on a platter, here’s a small diversion before we get back to eateries that serve good food and don’t rip people off.
The theme for today’s post is about habits – specifically those that have come down the family tree because no one really bothered to stop and ask why. My grandmother, like grandparents of many of us, grew up in some pretty tough times. It was just around the time of independence and growing up on a very limited income was a challenge. Money and resources around the house in general were mostly in a shortfall. This meant that every food item or every piece of clothing had to be utilized sparingly and to the fullest extent possible.
Such was the case when the household bought milk each morning. Grandma would transfer the milk to a vessel on the stove, and the one containing the milk initially was washed well with a small quantity of water and later poured into the second vessel containing the remaining milk. This was done to ensure that not a drop of milk was wasted. Time went by and the state milk corporation started delivering milk in packets of half liter and one liter. With Grandma, the same steps applied for the plastic packets. Cut, pour, rinse and pour. But there was an additional step this time. The packet would be washed thoroughly once again with water, and the water would be allowed to drain by the kitchen sink. The inside of the cover would dry in a few hours and the now redundant milk packet would go into a big yellow plastic bag along with milk packets from the previous weeks. This collection of milk packets went on for a month or two till the big yellow bag could hold no more. Grandpa would then dispose them off to the paperwala in exchange for 2 bucks.
This practice is prevalent in many south Indian households. Watching this in action, my mother sub consciously grew habituated to cleaning milk covers and collecting them. Years rolled on and the family finances stabilized to the point where drops of milk could be deemed insignificant to the monthly budget. But the habit stayed in the blood. We lived in a fabulous neighborhood, would eat out at fine restaurants, wore good clothes and even bought a PC when PCs at home were uncommon. Yet, my mother continued to clean and dry milk covers and collected them in exchange for 10 bucks from the paperwala: not because she wanted the 10 bucks, but because she was so programmed to what her mother did that she continued to do it without once stopping and questioning the relevance of the practice in present day.
I learnt the same from my mother in my early teens. I would cut open the packet of milk, pour it, rinse the cover, pour it again, clean it, dry it and stack it. It was in the DNA. Until one day in high school, I went to a friend’s house. His mother was not at home. We decided to whip up a yummy chocolate milk shake on that summer noon. My friend opened the fridge in the kitchen and got out the packet of milk. He poured the contents into a vessel. And right there before my eyes, he threw the cover in the dustbin. I almost had a heart attack at that young age. I guess his great grand parents were well to do.
The theme for today’s post is about habits – specifically those that have come down the family tree because no one really bothered to stop and ask why. My grandmother, like grandparents of many of us, grew up in some pretty tough times. It was just around the time of independence and growing up on a very limited income was a challenge. Money and resources around the house in general were mostly in a shortfall. This meant that every food item or every piece of clothing had to be utilized sparingly and to the fullest extent possible.
Such was the case when the household bought milk each morning. Grandma would transfer the milk to a vessel on the stove, and the one containing the milk initially was washed well with a small quantity of water and later poured into the second vessel containing the remaining milk. This was done to ensure that not a drop of milk was wasted. Time went by and the state milk corporation started delivering milk in packets of half liter and one liter. With Grandma, the same steps applied for the plastic packets. Cut, pour, rinse and pour. But there was an additional step this time. The packet would be washed thoroughly once again with water, and the water would be allowed to drain by the kitchen sink. The inside of the cover would dry in a few hours and the now redundant milk packet would go into a big yellow plastic bag along with milk packets from the previous weeks. This collection of milk packets went on for a month or two till the big yellow bag could hold no more. Grandpa would then dispose them off to the paperwala in exchange for 2 bucks.
This practice is prevalent in many south Indian households. Watching this in action, my mother sub consciously grew habituated to cleaning milk covers and collecting them. Years rolled on and the family finances stabilized to the point where drops of milk could be deemed insignificant to the monthly budget. But the habit stayed in the blood. We lived in a fabulous neighborhood, would eat out at fine restaurants, wore good clothes and even bought a PC when PCs at home were uncommon. Yet, my mother continued to clean and dry milk covers and collected them in exchange for 10 bucks from the paperwala: not because she wanted the 10 bucks, but because she was so programmed to what her mother did that she continued to do it without once stopping and questioning the relevance of the practice in present day.
I learnt the same from my mother in my early teens. I would cut open the packet of milk, pour it, rinse the cover, pour it again, clean it, dry it and stack it. It was in the DNA. Until one day in high school, I went to a friend’s house. His mother was not at home. We decided to whip up a yummy chocolate milk shake on that summer noon. My friend opened the fridge in the kitchen and got out the packet of milk. He poured the contents into a vessel. And right there before my eyes, he threw the cover in the dustbin. I almost had a heart attack at that young age. I guess his great grand parents were well to do.
Monday, May 18, 2009
When is it too late?
I read a joke once in which a gorgeous woman on a stroll notices a guy seated on a park bench. He looks old but fit. The woman is intrigued by the man’s appearance and decides to find out more. She sits beside him on the bench and asks him what the secret to his good looks are at such an old age. The man starts off by telling her that he spent most of his life consuming junk food and alcohol. He tells her that he smoked a packet of cigarettes everyday, and regularly visited brothels. He never exercised and in a nut shell, led an erratic life. The woman is surprised as this was certainly not what she expected to hear. But nonetheless, she continues and asks him how old he his.
Bang comes the reply: “Twenty seven.”
I found the joke funny and sad at the same time. We all have our moments in time when we wake up one fine morning and realize we are 23 years old (like I will be tomorrow) and haven’t really done much all these years. A sense of panic sets in at times and we ‘decide’ to do more with our lives. But a few days later, there’s a visitor at the door. His name is laziness. He’s been with you before and you recognize each other all to well. He wants to move in with you this time. Most would oblige and let the visitor in. Time goes by and soon you realize that he’s been sapping you of energy. It’s time to drive him out. Many others would let him be their guest for as long as he chooses.
At 19, I expected to be much further ahead by this time than where I am right now. Maybe that thought occurs to you sometimes. But what’s going to make the difference is the answer to this question: “What then?” It’s unreasonable to think that it’s too late.
I’m working with a book called Word Power made easy by Norman Lewis. The author makes it explicitly clear in the introductory chapters that it’s never too late to increase one’s vocabulary. I think you can take that thought and broaden it out to other areas as well. I have friends who are 28 that think they’re getting old. Still worse; there are 24 year olds that think it’s too late. On the other hand, I know of a 61 year old who’s been looking forward to going to the Oktoberfest in Munich.
The human body is designed to function well for a period of 120 years with all the right kind of care and nutrition. Take your current age and subtract it from 120. Maybe that should give you an idea if you are interested.
Bang comes the reply: “Twenty seven.”
I found the joke funny and sad at the same time. We all have our moments in time when we wake up one fine morning and realize we are 23 years old (like I will be tomorrow) and haven’t really done much all these years. A sense of panic sets in at times and we ‘decide’ to do more with our lives. But a few days later, there’s a visitor at the door. His name is laziness. He’s been with you before and you recognize each other all to well. He wants to move in with you this time. Most would oblige and let the visitor in. Time goes by and soon you realize that he’s been sapping you of energy. It’s time to drive him out. Many others would let him be their guest for as long as he chooses.
At 19, I expected to be much further ahead by this time than where I am right now. Maybe that thought occurs to you sometimes. But what’s going to make the difference is the answer to this question: “What then?” It’s unreasonable to think that it’s too late.
I’m working with a book called Word Power made easy by Norman Lewis. The author makes it explicitly clear in the introductory chapters that it’s never too late to increase one’s vocabulary. I think you can take that thought and broaden it out to other areas as well. I have friends who are 28 that think they’re getting old. Still worse; there are 24 year olds that think it’s too late. On the other hand, I know of a 61 year old who’s been looking forward to going to the Oktoberfest in Munich.
The human body is designed to function well for a period of 120 years with all the right kind of care and nutrition. Take your current age and subtract it from 120. Maybe that should give you an idea if you are interested.
Friday, September 19, 2008
The Gratitude Rock
Try this:
Pick up a small stone or a pebble. Clean it and let it dry completely. Carry this stone around with you where ever you go. For men, let it remain in your pocket throughout the day, and when you retire for the night, leave it on your desk along with the wallet, keys and the hand-kerchief. Ladies, it can remain in your bag. But take it out every night, and put it back in the next morning.
This is called the ‘Gratitude Rock’, and this technique has been featured in the movie The Secret. Every time you see the rock or feel it with your hands, just say this to yourself: “I thank the Universe for giving me _____”. If there is something that you’re missing in your life at this point in time, fill that in the blank. It could be as simple as “I thank the Universe for giving me a good night’s sleep” (which is something that I have been saying a lot lately!) or “I thank the Universe for giving me a stress free day” or “I thank the Universe for giving me a triple frappaccino latte with double cinnamon shot”. Ask for anything. And sooner or later, you will see yourself attracting it. Gratitude works well with anything in life. This is a law of the universe.
‘Focus’ is the next key word. Always be specific in what you ask the universe for, and focus on it in your mind. And that evokes another great law: What you focus on is what you get. If your want to be healthy, thank the universe for granting you good health. If it’s money that you need, every time you touch the gratitude rock, thank the universe for giving you an abundance of money. But do it regularly and consistently with focus. To burn a piece of paper, it takes a magnifying glass to remain in one position and focus the sun’s rays on to the paper. Obviously, nothing much is going to happen if you wave around the magnifying glass. Why? Focused attention ALWAYS delivers, but when executed with a sense of gratitude.
This might be heavy philosophy from someone who’s been writing about coffee and beer and escapades. But then, we all change tracks.
Coming soon: Coffee, beer and escapades.
Pick up a small stone or a pebble. Clean it and let it dry completely. Carry this stone around with you where ever you go. For men, let it remain in your pocket throughout the day, and when you retire for the night, leave it on your desk along with the wallet, keys and the hand-kerchief. Ladies, it can remain in your bag. But take it out every night, and put it back in the next morning.
This is called the ‘Gratitude Rock’, and this technique has been featured in the movie The Secret. Every time you see the rock or feel it with your hands, just say this to yourself: “I thank the Universe for giving me _____”. If there is something that you’re missing in your life at this point in time, fill that in the blank. It could be as simple as “I thank the Universe for giving me a good night’s sleep” (which is something that I have been saying a lot lately!) or “I thank the Universe for giving me a stress free day” or “I thank the Universe for giving me a triple frappaccino latte with double cinnamon shot”. Ask for anything. And sooner or later, you will see yourself attracting it. Gratitude works well with anything in life. This is a law of the universe.
‘Focus’ is the next key word. Always be specific in what you ask the universe for, and focus on it in your mind. And that evokes another great law: What you focus on is what you get. If your want to be healthy, thank the universe for granting you good health. If it’s money that you need, every time you touch the gratitude rock, thank the universe for giving you an abundance of money. But do it regularly and consistently with focus. To burn a piece of paper, it takes a magnifying glass to remain in one position and focus the sun’s rays on to the paper. Obviously, nothing much is going to happen if you wave around the magnifying glass. Why? Focused attention ALWAYS delivers, but when executed with a sense of gratitude.
This might be heavy philosophy from someone who’s been writing about coffee and beer and escapades. But then, we all change tracks.
Coming soon: Coffee, beer and escapades.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Creative Block
and i thought that i ought to address this one particular issue. Call it a paradox if you will, but I just happen to find myself more creative while at home than when at hostel. My mind is running 24/7, laziness is the last word to describe my state of existence and there's always more to do and less time to do it in. Now this is the state of affairs every December, May, June and July.
The rest of the year (college months), I hit that cliched roadblock. Laziness is the outer most layer of my skin. My mind is constipated for ideas and the day has 48 hours.
And on such days, I blog.
If you happen to lead two lives - between the hostel and the home, you probably know what I'm talking about. I like to call it the creative block.
The rest of the year (college months), I hit that cliched roadblock. Laziness is the outer most layer of my skin. My mind is constipated for ideas and the day has 48 hours.
And on such days, I blog.
If you happen to lead two lives - between the hostel and the home, you probably know what I'm talking about. I like to call it the creative block.
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