Farooque Shaikh

My friend's post about her meeting with Farooque Shaikh.

Loved it - people get blinded by the pursuit and eventually start tripping on it.
It's important to take a step back and take it all in, see things in a simpler light and slow down just a tad.

The Smelly Socks

We finished it with chai, emu, eggs, bread (paav), and bun-maska!
The 1st Red Bull Soap Box race in India, held in Mumbai.

The event was horribly organised but it all ended well on a historic 2nd December, 2012. The Smelly Socks rode down the Mount Mary hill curves and ended with 3 functional tyres and a tired Po - the Kung Fu Panda.

It was interesting how I managed to mumble some words to the superhot VJ Ramona before sitting in our car which had been built almost single-handedly by one of our team-mates. He is 50 years old but younger than most 26 year olds I know. Awe-inspiring bugger.
I rolled down the steep ramp in our car and as soon as I hit the road I veered off-track and into the haystacks; banged my head on the steering control - a severe bump right above my left eye!!
What ensued was a ripped front portion of our car, my teammates pushing my car along, hollering some mumblings, lifting the car up at the turns because of our poor turning radius - in fact, I lifted the car up by myself at one such turn!! It ended with me doing the flintstones drive with my legs powering the car towards the end :D

Some things are inexplicable. I don't know why the rod didn't hit my eye. I don't know how we managed to change the hard plastic cap for a soft cushion wrapped in paper - the very portion that hit my head (I think).

Am alive and I loved it. The 1st ever such race to be held in India and my teammates made it possible for me to roll downhill in our contraption. Tired. 

Ratan Tata

History is beautiful, especially when it is one's own.
This video of Ratan Tata's formative years at Cornell is deeply sentimental; his love for cars and for planes; the stories about his times with his friends, his disdain for cold weather, him trying to land a small plane at JFK airport and in general, everybody's fond memories of those times.
Sure, the bad stuff would be edited out or left out - but what it must be to look back at the 1950s and say, damn, I've come far!

"Don't slam the door!!!"
A great story in the video is the time when the engine stalled and Ratan had to go for a forced landing! :D

The last 8 minutes of the video are exemplary - praise after praise for Ratan's humility and demeanour. What more could one want from life? To forge lasting relations with people, to enjoy life and do justice for the society around you.

"His way of saying goodbye was, 'Tata'" :D

I hope that his reputation is never tarnished because he is one Indian that most Indians tend to admire. Unmarried, lives with his 2 dogs - German shepherds, humble, soft-spoken, true grit and deeply in love with what the family name stands for.

Compromise

Yesterday, I was speaking with my Mom about how my generation is so different (on the topic of marriage and relationships); there was a time when people adjusted and compromised.
My mother's take was that it was out of respect for the elders and for the society. I refuted that claim; I said that it was more because there was no individualism, there were no choices. If your father told you to travel 20 kms to do something, you couldn't say, "Hey, I have this and this to do... please send somebody else for this menial task."

This lack of choices influenced a person's behaviour when married. Divorce was a no-no. Fighting was a no-no. Pizza was not allowed. There was no TV. There were no eligible hotties to tempt one.

My mother said then that today's people don't like to compromise. And I agreed. My mother said that it is important to compromise. And I agreed. And I framed a hypothetical situation:

Your (My mother's) daughter is 25 years old and gets married to a 25 year old guy. What should she do if, at the age of 30 the guy meets with an accident, becomes impotent and loses both his hands?
Another question in my mind is: What if, at the age of 30 she finds out that he is cheating on her? Regularly.

The answer, I believe, would be vastly different between:
the 1970s and the 2010s
one's own child and another's child
one's own plight and another's plight
a guy and a girl
a young married person and an old married person

Bharat believes in compromises. For the benefit of the whole. For the peace that goes with one's reputation and standing in society.
India believes in opportunities. India wants to do new things and doesn't want to adjust.
Life is now about taking chances and standing up for oneself, even though it may be at the cost of societal standing or parental disapproval.

Do read this story from Satangel's Review. It influenced this post.

SHUT UP YOU IDIOT

Spoiler Alert.
The final season of House MD has ended. A fitting end. Am happy we did not have to deal with the misery of Wilson's death or House's imprisonment/ death/ suicide/ murder...
Am truly going to miss the show. My eyes were watery when the house burnt down on house and Wilson tried to run towards him.
I hope that some of the 'lessons' don't leave me - those related to being an ass, having fun, not believing people at face value, the value of relationships, but foremost may just be the fear of imprisonment - may it be through a physical injury, a mental illness, a prison, bearing with personal commitments or just living a woeful life.

Lennon

John Lennon has his band of followers even today. I have loved him only because he was a part of the Beatles; for me the band was bigger than him. But once in a while, I have come across some of his (possible) quotes such as:

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” 

Ruminating yet again

I attended a dear friend's marriage in Agra. It was cold, I was surrounded by his IITian batchmates and I was happy to be there. 

I saw J. Edgar and got a peek into the life of a person who changed the world in a not-so-insignificant way.

I saw Coriolanus and wondered what Ralph Fiennes is made of. Wonderful actor he is.

I heard Michael Buble for the first time and I heard the mischief of Sinatra in his music.

Advaita, the band, is going to create some truly amazing music in the years to come. I know it.

Max Chandra is in Chennai right now (as far as I know).

Unfaithful made me question the concept of sanity.

The Selfish Gene makes me question the nature of human beings, reaffirms my belief in the insignificance of it all and makes me smile at the thought of our pursuit of the natural us.

And here I am waiting, while I see multitudes of people passing me by.

Often, and without effort, I see people through another eye; as though I am an alien looking at the human population engaged in activity. It scares me when I see myself functioning this way; detached, unemotional and yet immensely sensitive. And even though I am consciously engaged, I am alone. I am not sad, just pensive yet crazy. 

Human Nature

The above title may be considered an oxymoron. The picture below is partially the reason why.


The low-hanging fruit were plucked by humans before the middle of the 20th century. Most of our recent advances have been innovation-related - nothing wrong with that. It seems to me that until the age of 21 or so, when people start working for money, humans are rather natural; they are animalistic and constantly developing. And suddenly, as soon as they are thrown into the 'corporate world', something in them dies. I spoke with RS recently about how work done as an employee is usually mechanical, whereas work done when self-employed or when leading a team is raw, fruitful and exciting. Another friend works for a consultancy, one of the best, and says that all he really does is get things sorted and pretty looking - the answer to a client's problem is quite straight-forward but this dogma of mechanical or process-oriented work is slowly chipping away at human ingenuity. I had written about this in an earlier post but I felt the need to elaborate here. The prevalence of 'financial firms' is disturbing because their contribution is minimal relative to their potential of ruining the way modern societies function. Why are more engineers moving into finance and consultancy? And why are scientific brains rotting away in non-research oriented fields? Where have the artists disappeared?

Them that stare

LK and RS make me smile. Sadly, I can't meet them often and may be that is for the best - it leaves a sense of 'what's new?'.The way they make me smile is unlike how most others can; it has a hint of introspection and provocation.
Here I am in my office at the end of my first real week and already my time seems so qualitatively utilised. The discipline is still very lacking but that can be attained. I am reading the things I really wanted to and I absolutely enjoy this feeling! Sadly, envy is creeping in and Munger comes to my rescue :) He posited that envy is the worst of the 'seven deadly sins', because nothing good ever comes out of it - the same can't be said of sloth or gluttony.
Something is amiss with my personal life and I feel it gnawing at me; and then it strikes me - quicker and firmer than it used to - there is much time left and there are wonderful things to be done and luckily, this is the best of times.

"In sooth, I know not why I am so sad, it wearies me. But how I caught it, found it or came by it, what stuff 'tis made of - I am to learn."

Odd how I still remember this. 

Women

Some people need to be appreciated. Barkha Dutt.
Sadly, I have not heard her or seen her much but I'm going to let my judgement rule me today (as I allow quite often).
For some reason (refer to the Radia Tapes) Barkha has been 'pinned down' for her role by other media persons.
I saw a table conference / discussion on NDTV 24x7 where one dude was saying something against Barkha; Barkha was there and she retaliated with pain and emotion.
In those few minutes I chose to see Barkha's might, integrity and passion.
Call me sexist but it was a pleasure to see such a strong voice from a woman with an aggressive body language. I was thinking today about the clichéd statement : "Today, the woman walks shoulder to shoulder alongside man." I find that acceptable in a few cases, however, women, especially in India, even if educated, tend to stand back or are not allowed to progress because of societal structure.
I'm referring to family, marriage, motherhood and an odd suppression by the man. The last reference is to a man / husband / boyfriend who will frown on the woman being vain or her flirty/ playful nature or her ambitious loner nature or her need for independence or her need for a chance to prove herself.
This post is not an attempt at defending women, rather it's an attempt at hoping for a fairer tomorrow. An interesting, independent, strong woman is rare.

Caveat: A woman who chooses a house / family life ought to be respected. Please re-read the statement and put an emphasis on the word 'chooses'. Choice is rare.
Barkha, Thanks.

Age

I was listening to Elton John today morning on the radio and the RJ said something about he's 63 years old and still belting out music :)
And I - idealistic and stupid (not) - thought of how we tend to while away our time without due consideration given to our smiles and to the pursuit of something that has no real end...
I thought of my friend's friend, the dude, supposedly, just jams with his amateur band every (other?) Saturday. He's just one example.
But what I see clearly missing in India and in Indians is passion... Need to find it.

Death and Celebrations

There was a train collision in Madhya Pradesh wherein 21 people died and many other injured - cause: human error.
Floods in Uttarakhand and the Yamuna overflowing just north of Delhi - Countless made homeless, don't know how many died.
2 people shot at near Jama Masjid in New Delhi - supposed terror attack.
Ganesh Chaturthi celebrated with much chutzpah in Mumbai.

Are we insensitive? Or is this normal behaviour?
Politically speaking, we like to equate all human lives and frown at untoward incidences, but frankly I don't see people caring about people who they don't really care about. Convoluted statement?

Faith is a wonderful thing. I walked near my place in the evening where the gullies were empty and the roads were filled with people dancing around the Ganpati idols. Nonchalance characterised my walk that evening as I am not a religious person, but I loved looking at people and how simply some of them were sitting patiently and how others were dancing simply merrily - I even saw one guy trying his version of a break dance :)
I see some of our religious festivals as means to unify India across caste divides - clearly seen during Ganesh Visarjan yesterday.

I might never understand what excites foreigners when the come to India and see such social behaviour :)

Underground Metro Peace March at Juhu

So I went for a 'Peace March' today. It was primarily comprised of Juhu residents asking / demanding an underground metro through the suburbs instead of an overhead metro. It seems like a sensible demand but a rather useless demand.
The more immediate and painful issues are water supply, potholes and the dearth of roads and flyover through the city. However, this 'protest' did ask for accountability and answers.
Why is erection taking so long? (No pun) How much is it really costing Mumbai-ites in kind - time, energy, traffic (you know what I mean). Why have patches of road been under construction for so long a time?
I did not care too much about the metro's elevation because I really see the lack of proper road infrastructure as a pressing issue. Nonetheless, I did go for the rally because I wanted to see the show that people were capable of putting up. Moreover, only when we support protests will we have more meaningful protests.
I left 1 hour into the rally while the others kept marching on, but I would gladly be a part of such movements in the future and hopefully one day help in organising such a rally.

O yes, almost forgot to mention this. The route that the people were going to take had posters by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena ( O! How I love them from the bottom of my butt) supporting the cause. What a (poop) turnoff! Yes, yes... at least 'they' were supporting the cause... BS

What lies ahead for humans...

"For the first 2 billion years or so , the rate of increase in complexity (of DNA) must have been of the order of one bit of information every hundred years. The rate of increase of DNA complexity gradually rose to about one bit a year over the last few million years.
But then, about six or eight thousand years ago, a major new development occurred. We developed written language.
This meant that information could be passed on from one generation to the next without having to wait for the very slow process of random mutations and natural selection to code it into the DNA sequence."

Stephen Hawking is trying to say that evolution - because of this development - has just become a whole lot faster.
I love the guy's candor.

"Because we claim to be intelligent, though perhaps without much ground, we tend to see intelligence as an inevitable consequence of evolution. However one can question that. It is not clear that intelligence has much survival value. Bacteria do very well without intelligence and will survive us if our so-called intelligence causes us to wipe ourselves out in a nuclear war."

He also posited that advanced life-forms have already found us but are just chilling and looking at us. But then, if they are so advanced why have they not destroyed us - for example, we don't think twice before killing a bug. :D

I had a thought. What if there were more advanced life-forms but similar to what we might do in the future, they destroyed themselves some million years ago on Earth? May be they managed to destroy themselves so well that they left no trace of themselves or their subordinate beings...

Find me the spark

Great personalities and great contributions are rarely realized. Random names: Mozart, Ludwig Van, Mohandas Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Mother Teresa, Michael Jordan?, Elvis Presley, The Beatles!
I believe that striking personalities are difficult to find now and will be even more difficult to find in the future.
There is a lack of independent thought. There is a lack of art (in its various forms).

Do we even know of great artists, poets, composers, authors or leaders from the past 2 decades? Sure, one can say Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Rushdie? - but eh...
What I see is that capitalism and prosperity have driven people into (largely) single files where everyone strives for individual 'success'. It's great that the end of the Cold War stimulated global prosperity. But has the pursuit of prosperity robbed humans of their inherent humanity?

The people who don't fall into files don't get the attention that they would have received some decades ago.
People have become part of the machine and it wouldn't be incorrect to say that things are nice, but I would say that there is an absence of human ingenuity today. Medical research, financial innovations, technological changes are largely driven by entrepreneurs - not as much due to curiosity and thrill, but more due to power and success.
The simplicity of yesteryears is lost.

On an individual level, I believe that some of the innocence can still be ploughed back, or rather, brought to life. Losing oneself and withdrawing from society is a fairly recent development and it can do some of us a lot of good methinks.

Too much time is spent on fear and obedience.

Special

I write in a diary. At the last page of my diary, I have a cut-out of an article that was published in Times Life Sunday April 12, 2009.
I kept that article because it encapsulates a lot that is dysfunctional in society as we see it evolving. I have had the luxury of studying in the US for a year and I did not see the same emotions there, but I do see them in Mumbai. In short, people believe they are special and they ought to be doing something better than what they are going towards or are currently doing.
It also tells us of how simple life ought to be and how complex we tend to make in pursuit of that which is never static - happiness.

Politically Incorrect

How would you feel if your son died? What would you do then?
What if you are inflicted with a disease that will slowly and painfully kill you?
Why do we care about our looks? Is it so that we look presentable in society and so that people are attracted to us and at the least, not repulsed by our presence?
Have we learnt about romance and companionship through the media, primarily through movies?
Does a man instinctively lean towards sex, but is weaned away from it because of societal correctness?
Why do we care about sex and physical pleasures when they are meant to be short lived? May be that is exactly why...
Looks will leave us and we will learn to be docile; we hope that we always remain outrageous even though it may be in a small way...
Some of us believe we don't belong, and we like to believe that it is only some of us who are this way...
What would it be like to be molested or raped? - and here I refer to both sexes.
What would it be like to know that someone you care about has been molested or raped?
What if you are locked away against your will?
What if you accidentally kill or injure or maim a person? - How would you live with that?
All of life's luxuries are taken away from you, against your will; what do you do?
One fine day, you lose a limb or you lose your speech and you are no longer normal and able - at least not as able as you used to be... you fear that people will slowly leave you... you fear that people will pity you and you hate the fact that you are helpless... What do you do?

Most of the aforementioned things will never happen to most of us; but when they do, we deal with them then; no use fretting over them just now. Most of life is mundane and normal; some of us like to make changes and make our respective lives interesting; and then, once in a while we stumble or are forced to stumble.

Random RRG

Random people:

On my way back I met a guy; now, this guy could have been a figment of my imagination because I was the only person to have met him, and I had been walking a long while and was really tired. He has been trekking through these hills for the last 3 years and likes going through caves. Elaboration: Underground caves, bat caves :| Odd and highly interesting.


At Miguel's Pizza, a woman starts talking to me, I still don't know why. She is sloppy and offers me a bite of her pizza - random! When I go to order my pizza, her friend comes up and says, 'Damn, one shouldn't travel with people man! I need to order a pizza before that chick goes ballistic on me."


Amanda McLaughlin - Had been to India for a long time and done stuff that I would never have done myself... Had constructive and long conversations with her. Talking to partial strangers is always enjoyable :)

Jill - Artist, mother of 3, gorgeous and travels with her husband. Husband is into homebuilding and the entire family is great at music and playing instruments :). Her favourite Indian phrase: " Khana khana hai? "

Another odd thing I realised about English was that they do not have the 'T' as in Tirath or as in 'Tareef', it's always a 'T' as in 'Tomato'.

One thing that I would say often, "You know, I could very well die and nobody would know... Hmmm... Would it matter if I were to die? Hmmm... That should be fun. Life is too boring you know... nothing interesting happens; we have to try hard to make it interesting."

Warren Buffett

Excerpt from Buffett's letter to BRK's shareholders for 2009.


" And now a painful confession: Last year your chairman closed the book on a very expensive business fiasco entirely of his own making.

For many years I had struggled to think of side products that we could offer our millions of loyal GEICO customers. Unfortunately, I finally succeeded, coming up with a brilliant insight that we should market our own credit card. I reasoned that GEICO policyholders were likely to be good credit risks and, assuming we offered an attractive card, would likely favor us with their business. We got business all right - but of the wrong type.

Our pre-tax losses from credit-card operations came to about $6.3 million before I finally woke up. We then sold our $98 million portfolio of troubled receivables for 55¢ on the dollar, losing an additional $44 million.

GEICO’s managers, it should be emphasized, were never enthusiastic about my idea. They warned me that instead of getting the cream of GEICO’s customers we would get the – – – – – well, let’s call it the non-cream. I subtly indicated that I was older and wiser.

I was just older. "

Humble and forthright, and possibly, a facade (But I choose not to see it that way!).


He ended the letter with:
" P.S. Come by rail. "

Sachin

So, what do I love about Sachin Tendulkar?
He holds way too many cricket records;
He can unite cricket fans across the globe;
He made me watch a cricket innings today after a long long time;
He is 5 feet 5 inches tall;
He has a very unusual (soft) voice;
He doesn't seem to talk much on the ground, but has been referred to as one of the worst sledgers ever by Glen McGrath (That's what I remember Glen saying in an interview).
Humility?
Focus.