Most of us live, yet our lives have no story to tell. What story can be more pedantic than the pursuit of security and luxury while living within one’s zone of comfort and constrained imagination. Does your life tell a story?
This note, then, is about someone whose life has a story to tell. As I turned the pages of The Times of India this morning, I saw a touching memoriam to a Fauji, killed in the Valley exactly a decade ago. A few months ago, when I met his wife, it was in my role as a Coach for a program run by the Indian School of Business.
Sangeetha was in her late twenties when she lost her husband. Without an MBA or other professional qualification, holding a little child and overwhelmed by grief, she could well have retreated into the recesses of family comfort and anonymity, as many others have. The Government did what it always does: the unthinkable. It offered to allot her a fuel station in a lower-middle class locality in an unknown city (Bangalore). The circle of family and friends gave her predictable advice: say No, be the quintessential home-maker, live for the child, and so on. If she did the unthinkable and took on the task of setting up a bunk, with little knowledge of this, or for that matter any, business, it was because she wanted to temper the grief and develop an identity.
Eight years later, it’s a job very well done, even though she has little entrepreneurial passion for this business. I spent a few hours understanding the operation and the person – knowing the person is the most important bit – and the question on my mind was: Why was I a mentor to her, and not the other way around? Let’s define entrepreneurship for a minute: courage, persistence, the will to survive in business, the ability to take risks and some business basics……Most of us, particularly us MBAs, have the last part. She has the lot. If she is constrained, it is because of the dynamics of the fuel business, but, as I repeatedly told her, she would be a success in any business she chose to do with passion. The only thing a mentor can really do is listen, possibly praise; I trust I did both in some measure.
As I sat reading the rest of the newspaper, these thoughts crossed my head, as I silently saluted a man who laid his life down in defence of his country, and his wife who had the courage to step up to the challenge of creating a space for herself. Aristotle once said, “ Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” I teach.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Two Stories. One Moral
Two stories. One moral.
A few days ago, the CBSE results were announced on the Web. On that morning, the garrulous maid who cleans our home came in a bit late, with a grin on her face.
‘Anna, she began, ‘ This morning, I have to keep a watchful eye on a boy who lives in another apartment where I work, who has just written his tenth standard exams.’
‘Why?’ I queried
‘His mother is off to work and has asked me to ensure he doesn’t do anything silly if he gets marks below his expectations. His mother says that you really can’t predict how children will behave these days.’
Can you imagine this? A mother who found her work more important on such a day, abdicating her responsibility of just being with her child to a maid. A mom whose known repression of her son led even her to believe that he could not be trusted with himself. Is this what education does to us?
Incident Two: two days later, I was seated by a window in an Airbus to Mumbai. Next to me was a two year old, with her mother beside her, holding an infant in her lap. Her husband sat across the aisle.
It was clear that the children were scared. They were crying at a very high pitch, with the mom trying hard to soothe them, to little effect. As the plane took off, the two year old turned hysterical, which made me suspect the possibility of a block in the inner ear, and some pain – a not unusual occurrence, as the plane gains or drops altitude. Thankfully, the television saved the moment, and the child quietened down, even as the mother nursed the infant. About forty five minutes later, as the plane dropped altitude, the children began to howl again, clearly due to the pain in the ear. The mother went back to nursing the infant, which only made the two-year old cry louder. In her embarrassment, the mother’s face turned red, her initial indulgence with the child turning to outright hostility – she began to beat and pinch the two year old, even as she herself began to cry. The air hostess offered some sugar that would help in swallowing and, hence, in relieving the pain. The angry woman rejected the offer – how could anyone know how to manage my child? I looked away, as she actually pressed her palm against the mouth of the child to prevent her from crying, her other hand pinching the child’s bottom with force. The screaming child shifted position and lay on her mother’s lap; her crying had now reached a feverish pitch. When I looked again, the mother had opened the dining tray onto the head of the two year old and was pressing on it with all her might to hurt her own child. I looked away and waited for this family to leave the aircraft before getting off myself. Is this what education does to us?
If, years (perhaps two decades or more) later, these two children – one, a boy who has just finished his CBSE and the other, a two-old girl belonging to a different city, a different culture – decide to dump their parents in an old age home, or choose to migrate to another country leaving the elders dependant on a nurse, can you blame them?
How does one start the movement from literacy to education?
A few days ago, the CBSE results were announced on the Web. On that morning, the garrulous maid who cleans our home came in a bit late, with a grin on her face.
‘Anna, she began, ‘ This morning, I have to keep a watchful eye on a boy who lives in another apartment where I work, who has just written his tenth standard exams.’
‘Why?’ I queried
‘His mother is off to work and has asked me to ensure he doesn’t do anything silly if he gets marks below his expectations. His mother says that you really can’t predict how children will behave these days.’
Can you imagine this? A mother who found her work more important on such a day, abdicating her responsibility of just being with her child to a maid. A mom whose known repression of her son led even her to believe that he could not be trusted with himself. Is this what education does to us?
Incident Two: two days later, I was seated by a window in an Airbus to Mumbai. Next to me was a two year old, with her mother beside her, holding an infant in her lap. Her husband sat across the aisle.
It was clear that the children were scared. They were crying at a very high pitch, with the mom trying hard to soothe them, to little effect. As the plane took off, the two year old turned hysterical, which made me suspect the possibility of a block in the inner ear, and some pain – a not unusual occurrence, as the plane gains or drops altitude. Thankfully, the television saved the moment, and the child quietened down, even as the mother nursed the infant. About forty five minutes later, as the plane dropped altitude, the children began to howl again, clearly due to the pain in the ear. The mother went back to nursing the infant, which only made the two-year old cry louder. In her embarrassment, the mother’s face turned red, her initial indulgence with the child turning to outright hostility – she began to beat and pinch the two year old, even as she herself began to cry. The air hostess offered some sugar that would help in swallowing and, hence, in relieving the pain. The angry woman rejected the offer – how could anyone know how to manage my child? I looked away, as she actually pressed her palm against the mouth of the child to prevent her from crying, her other hand pinching the child’s bottom with force. The screaming child shifted position and lay on her mother’s lap; her crying had now reached a feverish pitch. When I looked again, the mother had opened the dining tray onto the head of the two year old and was pressing on it with all her might to hurt her own child. I looked away and waited for this family to leave the aircraft before getting off myself. Is this what education does to us?
If, years (perhaps two decades or more) later, these two children – one, a boy who has just finished his CBSE and the other, a two-old girl belonging to a different city, a different culture – decide to dump their parents in an old age home, or choose to migrate to another country leaving the elders dependant on a nurse, can you blame them?
How does one start the movement from literacy to education?
Sunday, May 23, 2010
A Scorpio isn't a sun sign, it's a nightmare
If there’s one car I dislike, it’s the Scorpio. It has many influential cousins, all equally dislike-able, including the Outlander, Endeavour and the Land Rover. Well, the cars look good by themselves, I must admit. Its what happens to normal, decent, ordinary (though rich) people when they get behind the wheel of these metal tanks.
The driver of the typical urban SUV is reckless, fast, mannerless and uncaring. It is, I am certain, the result of the perception of power that one acquires in the insulated safety of a steel-encased tank, a perception fed adequately by the silly media industry that extols you to buy the monster for its power & go-anywhere feature (though a fraction of these monsters are actually used on roads they are designed to ‘conquer’). How else do you explain its bearing down on you as you cross the road, horn blaring and lights flashing, as though it were taking a patient on his last breath to hospital? Why else would politicians, for instance, and dodgy businessmen make SUVs (primarily the Scorpio because of its relatively low price) their vehicles of choice?
Reality often beguiles perception. I wondered if anyone had done any research work on the possible link between SUVs and self esteem (and its ugly side, narcissism). In the lovely book, The Spirit Level, I came across an excerpt posted below (with much delight):
“…the popularity of SUVs suggest a preoccupation with looking tough & reflects growing mistrust and the need to feel safe from others. Josh Lauer, in his paper, ‘Driven to extremes’, asked why military ruggedness became prized above speed or sleekness and what the rise of the SUV said about American society. He concluded that the trend reflected American attitudes towards crime and violence, an admiration for rugged individualism and the importance of shutting oneself off from contact with others – mistrust. Accompanying the rise in SUVs were other signs of Americans’ increased uneasiness and fear of one another: growing numbers of gated communities and increasing sales of home security systems.”
QED
The driver of the typical urban SUV is reckless, fast, mannerless and uncaring. It is, I am certain, the result of the perception of power that one acquires in the insulated safety of a steel-encased tank, a perception fed adequately by the silly media industry that extols you to buy the monster for its power & go-anywhere feature (though a fraction of these monsters are actually used on roads they are designed to ‘conquer’). How else do you explain its bearing down on you as you cross the road, horn blaring and lights flashing, as though it were taking a patient on his last breath to hospital? Why else would politicians, for instance, and dodgy businessmen make SUVs (primarily the Scorpio because of its relatively low price) their vehicles of choice?
Reality often beguiles perception. I wondered if anyone had done any research work on the possible link between SUVs and self esteem (and its ugly side, narcissism). In the lovely book, The Spirit Level, I came across an excerpt posted below (with much delight):
“…the popularity of SUVs suggest a preoccupation with looking tough & reflects growing mistrust and the need to feel safe from others. Josh Lauer, in his paper, ‘Driven to extremes’, asked why military ruggedness became prized above speed or sleekness and what the rise of the SUV said about American society. He concluded that the trend reflected American attitudes towards crime and violence, an admiration for rugged individualism and the importance of shutting oneself off from contact with others – mistrust. Accompanying the rise in SUVs were other signs of Americans’ increased uneasiness and fear of one another: growing numbers of gated communities and increasing sales of home security systems.”
QED
Monday, March 29, 2010
Paths are made for walking
The warm spring season in Feb-March is my favourite time of year.
As you walk by the different species of trees that line the roads, most of them in flower, the mild, yet intoxicating, fragrances emanating from them make you breathe more, deeper and fuller. The honge is in a class of its own, its mauve & white tiny flowers forming a carpet that attracts the apis indica in their hundreds and releasing the scents of a million blossoms in spring that power the imagination. No less is the large leaf Mahogany (about which I have written in the earlier post), the now-scantily flowering Cork tree (Millingtonia Hortensis to those who know of Millington, the great botanist in pre-Independence India) and the Champaka in white and blood red.
Stop to look around you and up into the foliage and you are greeted with a riot of colours, with the Tabebuias leading from the front. Colours from the delicate to the resplendent, from the ridiculous to the sublime – only Nature could prepare this Planter's Punch, in a moment of heady mirth. Walk longer, a lot longer, to reach Lalbagh and a lot more is in store – the Flame of the Forest (Butea), now alas a rarity in the city, the Coral Tree, the Silk Cottons in two colours that would shock and awe, the giant Mahua, the flowers of which would make a heady brew and, as April dawns and the season of Vishu begins (the Malayalam new year), the most beautiful, the most delicate, the most inexplicably charming necklace of petals, the Laburnum (Cassia Fistula, Vishu Kanni in God's own language).
As you can see, this is clearly my pick; I can spend a happy hour by a laburnum, watching the necklaces of yellow sway in the mild breeze, drop some flowers or draw a dizzy bee into their midst. When our ancestors first set store by this tree, profiling it as sacred, setting its flowers aside for worship and giving an otherwise ordinary tree a place of pride, it was because they had had their moments of exultant de bonheur, an unbrindled happiness at the sight of the Laburnum. We have a lot to learn from the history of beauty.
As you walk by the different species of trees that line the roads, most of them in flower, the mild, yet intoxicating, fragrances emanating from them make you breathe more, deeper and fuller. The honge is in a class of its own, its mauve & white tiny flowers forming a carpet that attracts the apis indica in their hundreds and releasing the scents of a million blossoms in spring that power the imagination. No less is the large leaf Mahogany (about which I have written in the earlier post), the now-scantily flowering Cork tree (Millingtonia Hortensis to those who know of Millington, the great botanist in pre-Independence India) and the Champaka in white and blood red.
Stop to look around you and up into the foliage and you are greeted with a riot of colours, with the Tabebuias leading from the front. Colours from the delicate to the resplendent, from the ridiculous to the sublime – only Nature could prepare this Planter's Punch, in a moment of heady mirth. Walk longer, a lot longer, to reach Lalbagh and a lot more is in store – the Flame of the Forest (Butea), now alas a rarity in the city, the Coral Tree, the Silk Cottons in two colours that would shock and awe, the giant Mahua, the flowers of which would make a heady brew and, as April dawns and the season of Vishu begins (the Malayalam new year), the most beautiful, the most delicate, the most inexplicably charming necklace of petals, the Laburnum (Cassia Fistula, Vishu Kanni in God's own language).
As you can see, this is clearly my pick; I can spend a happy hour by a laburnum, watching the necklaces of yellow sway in the mild breeze, drop some flowers or draw a dizzy bee into their midst. When our ancestors first set store by this tree, profiling it as sacred, setting its flowers aside for worship and giving an otherwise ordinary tree a place of pride, it was because they had had their moments of exultant de bonheur, an unbrindled happiness at the sight of the Laburnum. We have a lot to learn from the history of beauty.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Mahogany Magic
In the post-winter month of Feb - occasionally extending into early March - something astonishing comes alive in Bangalore, a process that, because it is commonplace, is taken for granted by all of us.
Many years ago, as a part of the social forestry program, large-leaved mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) was planted all over the city. This is not the expensive-wood mahogany that is considered better dead than alive. Rather, it is but a poor cousin, poor enough to be planted by the road and left to grow unhindered. And grow it does to a large size, flush with large green leaves and capsule-like fruits, covered with minute knobbly projections, containing many winged seeds that are, as I write this note, scattered on our pavements and roads.
In early Feb, as if on cue, every tree of this species begins to shed its leaves. The beginnings are modest and I often stand for a few minutes under the benign shade, tracking the lazy swirl of a leaf as it breeze-dances its way to the ground. A couple of days later, the process acquires a momentum, a shot of inspiration, a fillip and the occasional leaf is now joined by many many more, turning shedding into a veritable shower. Park a car under the tree for a day and you could well miss the steel-and-rubber under the pile up. Imagine, for a moment, just what imperative the tree is responding to, to have to issue pink slips with such rapidity, to shake off its clothing, much as wet dog shakes off water with some annoyance.
The imperative, of course, is the heat which results in transpiration loss. In the tropics, our deciduous trees shed their leaves in the summer, unlike the temperates where autumn is the season for the shed-fest, yet the magic of the mahogany is the sheer velocity of the process, measured in hours, not days, in the briefest moments of a mild breeze, not in gradual phase of weather change.
And one day, the tree is bare, a shadow of its former self - indeed it is quite an appropriate turn of phrase, for a bare tree's shadow is but sparse, a gigantic fibrous root system it would seem, upside down.
Miss this spectacle for a day or two though and you have missed it for a year. For very soon, the tree begins to grow its leaves again, bright dark-green leaflets, that soften the summer sunshine and fan the weary pedestrian. A week later, the tree is back to its former glory, bathed in a shiny green, a new look for the year ahead.
For some years now, I have watched this with fascination. I have far more questions than answers each year; questions such as 'What determines the speed of renewal?' and 'Why does it not wait for some indicator of rain before sprouting its leaves back?'
When a spectacle forces a question, we know that Nature is at work. Here, it's the magic of the Mahogany.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Just Why I am a Genius
One of my abiding questions has been: just why am I a genius? Indeed, I read somewhere that only geniuses ask this question.
Well, the latest issue of The Economist (page 78) has part of the answer. Research presented in the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Feb 19th proves that a post-prandial snooze sets the brain up for learning. Those who remain awake throughout the day become worse at learning. Those who nap, by contrast, actually improve their capacity to learn, doing better in the evening that they had at noon. These findings suggest that sleep is clearing the brain’s short term memory and making way for new information.
If you have additional insight on just why I am a genius let me know.
Well, the latest issue of The Economist (page 78) has part of the answer. Research presented in the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Feb 19th proves that a post-prandial snooze sets the brain up for learning. Those who remain awake throughout the day become worse at learning. Those who nap, by contrast, actually improve their capacity to learn, doing better in the evening that they had at noon. These findings suggest that sleep is clearing the brain’s short term memory and making way for new information.
If you have additional insight on just why I am a genius let me know.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
China is the wrong goalpost
Just prior to the Budget this year, a newspaper headlined "Finance minister says India will beat China by 2014." This is about as boring and predictable as one can get. The media and India's corporate sector has succeeded effectively in placing China on an aspirational economic pedestal, compelling politicians to pander to their views.
China is the wrong goal. In the pursuit of economic growth, it is destroying its environment, depleting its soil, air and water and producing third rate goods, often made or coated with toxic material. Fast growth comes at its own cost - its a very heavy burden for current and future generations to bear.
Just why can't we take the best examples in comprehensive economic growth? These are not economic Page 3s, so to speak, not spoken about in hushed tones or with awe. But they are solid examples: Bhutan, Netherlands, Costa Rica and Norway, all have a great deal to teach us. In an earlier blog, I briefly commented on the essence of Costa Rica's philosophy. Bhutan measures not GDP, but Gross Domestic Happiness. In a couple of later posts, I will cover the other two economic models, if only to make the point that human happiness, green cover and economic growth are intensely correlated and have never been contradictory.
One reason why the aforesaid 4 are not on any economic map is their size, particularly vis-a-vis India. China fits the bill here, of course, yet the fallacy is in the belief that 'thinking big' is thinking right. Nothing could be further away from the truth than this rather fallacious assumption.
China is the wrong goalpost. Happiness - through whatever economic model we choose - is the right one. More later.
China is the wrong goal. In the pursuit of economic growth, it is destroying its environment, depleting its soil, air and water and producing third rate goods, often made or coated with toxic material. Fast growth comes at its own cost - its a very heavy burden for current and future generations to bear.
Just why can't we take the best examples in comprehensive economic growth? These are not economic Page 3s, so to speak, not spoken about in hushed tones or with awe. But they are solid examples: Bhutan, Netherlands, Costa Rica and Norway, all have a great deal to teach us. In an earlier blog, I briefly commented on the essence of Costa Rica's philosophy. Bhutan measures not GDP, but Gross Domestic Happiness. In a couple of later posts, I will cover the other two economic models, if only to make the point that human happiness, green cover and economic growth are intensely correlated and have never been contradictory.
One reason why the aforesaid 4 are not on any economic map is their size, particularly vis-a-vis India. China fits the bill here, of course, yet the fallacy is in the belief that 'thinking big' is thinking right. Nothing could be further away from the truth than this rather fallacious assumption.
China is the wrong goalpost. Happiness - through whatever economic model we choose - is the right one. More later.
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