A night which has no end in sight !

The toads are croaking.

She is sleeping.

I am writing.

At midnight, when sleep eludes

It’s a prelude

To a night

Which has no end in sight.

A fight

between the past & future

A fight

between known & unknown

Battle ground is my mind

Which wants to live in NOW

But does not know HOW.

I keep trying

Alternating

between Reading & Meditating

After some time

It became so frustrating

That I started writing.

Is this the birth of a writer?

Is this how all writers are born ?

Out of turmoil,

Out of desperation

To keep your sanity

You use your creativity

To put words on paper

Or typewriter

So that that the mind get’s calmer

& the sleep comes faster.

In a night, which has no end in sight.

The Giving Week

Say Cheese!!!!!!!!!

One of the easiest things to do today is to click on a few links and donate money to people or fish out your wallet & give some money to someone needy & carry on browsing or driving and carry on. While one should do that – the joy of spending some time with people who need help is a different experience altogether.

My experience on a school visit during The Giving Week*.

We started off on a hot morning from Hosur & travelled amost for 2 hrs to reach a school which is very different from the NPS & New Horizon & other schools our children go to. The entire school will fit into one corner of a football field. There were no chairs & table in the class. The students sat in the ground but were as happy (maybe more) as any other kids in any school.

The entire class was very excited of our visit – as we were from Bangalore. We almost felt like we were the dignitaries. Most of them spoke Kannada and we spoke in Hindi & English. To solve the problem we spoke in action – one of us taught them Surya Namaskara – surprisingly 2 girls new it, we played Games and gave prizes, we also spoke about Hygiene – luckily few of us could speak the language and communicate clearly.

But the best part was when they are asked to perform – they all danced to the tunes of recent songs & I could see no difference in these kids & kids in Bangalore. We also asked them about World Cup but most of them preferred movies & songs – provided of course light is there.

When we asked them what wanted to become – many of them wanted to be teachers & doctors & come back to the village to serve their people. Mother was the most respected lady in most kids eyes.

Reading these few paras one would feel – what’s the big deal in spending ½ a day with children and doing simple things which one would find silly & maybe serve no purpose in our life / career. 

But “just do it” for once without purpose & you will realize that purpose will find you.

*Joy of Giving Week is a volunteering initiative by the Tata Group.

The 3 Idiots Moment or The young adult

It was for the nth time we saw 3 Idiots & as I saw it I reflected about what my friend & my daughter are going thru – the 3 Idiot moments. Although both of them are 30 years apart they are going thru the same pangs as they make decisions for their individual future.

Xth / School passing exam brings with it the pressure of probably making a tough choice in a person’s life for the 1^st time in today’s world. In our days (like in 3 Idiots) it was a tossup between engineering n medical or anything else.  

For her.....this is how her mind works:

she knows & we know that she is good in fine arts, presentation skills but she does not want to pursue the same because that does not have a good future or getting into NID is a difficult proposition etc. Larger logic is she knows she is good in arts but she might be good in something else hence she wants to discover something else like architecture – which requires maths, but she hates Maths but since she wants to do architecture she is willing to take up Maths. But wait she also like Bio but she does not want to become a doctor – maybe a teacher, eeks NO – that’s so boring so maybe microbiology / scientist types ya that sounds good. What with all the Maggie tamasha happening around us. So Bio is in so is Maths & Chem & Physics are all blood brothers – the way our combos are structured. Final choice BPCM….Whether that will be the final choice is anybody’s guess. 

That’s 1 yr down the line – so we will wait & see. But it was interesting to see how a young mind grapples with the idea of making a decision.

We adults are not different as I saw my dear friend go thru the same rigmarole as we sipped our whisky in a dimly lit room – throwback to our college days I guess. Change of job after almost a decade brings in similar kind of arguments. Should I throw away all my security & credibility painstakingly created in last 10 yrs for an unknown future? Is it the increase in money & the quality of work or the easy commute & a balanced lifestyle? Do you want to be the cog in the wheel or do you want to be the wheel? Do you really want to re-invent yourself at 40?

I have heard / read this so often “What’s your calling?”. But for every 10 successful start up there are 90 failures. Life’s journey begins where the 3 Idiot film end. 3 Idiots tells you to have the courage to take the decision but life takes its shape after you take the decision. You live that life day in day out hoping & you are part of the 10 & not 90.

I realized finally it your heart which decides – as in my friends case after a 3 hr discussion I realized his heart was made up, the discussion was to justify the questions which his rational mind was asking. Nobody know whether she will be an architect or his job will turn out to be a good choice but the 3 Idiots moment lies in the courage to take the decision & live by it happily, not doubting it.

I am sure the journey will have it’s ups & downs. Enjoy the ride!

Running Logs 3 - Choose Wisely!

The last time I ran was 28^th March when I hit 8.1 km. After a hiatus of almost 5 months I got back on road today. Thanks to minor injuries – shin / knee / elbow and a deflated spirit I stopped running which was (let’s say still is) one of my key goal of 2015. I got onto yoga and was sincerely doing it for an hr every day for last 3 months, I also got into meditation in a big way – as there was a need to calm my chattering mind (still is).

It was a nice feeling, as I ran, I could feel the fresh n cool air on my face n body. I could feel the tightness in my body after the run. Also I could feel a kind of stretch-wear-tear of muscles in specific areas. One of the thing YOGA/Meditation does is it unites your mind & body & today my running was different – unlike in the previous stint i.e. Jan/Feb, when Yanni or my run playsit egged me to run. Today I could literally feel myself deep inside various parts of body, literally speaking to them. It was a nice integrated kind of feeling which I never felt before.

As I walked back few thoughts rambled in my mind which I will try n articulate. Focus or not to focus is something which I always wanted to write about. I always believed that we should experience new things in any form - music, book, exercise, people, places etc. I strongly believe that you will connect the dots – you have to keep looking for it though. But in recent days our attention is getting split in numerous things – facebook, twitter, TED talks, QUORA- the variety & depth of news available to us on the internet & now on the go i.e mobile is making us loss our focus & you keep re-creating the question – What I am looking for? What do I need? Now the flow has become opposite – many times you receive the information and you then start asking the question - Was I looking for this? Do I need this?

My running in some sense went thru that – Yes, it’s fair to mention the injuries but I was not sincere to the promise I made to myself. I think sincerity to our purpose is critical especially things like hobby where there is no result or performance orientation like a job. How to draw a line or create a balance is for me & I guess for all of us is the toughest act. We have moved from a situation of scarcity to a situation of abundance & it’s easier to flow with the current than against it & most of us choose that as a default mode.

I know so many people around me who are obsessed about running, they talk about it, read about it, participate in events, part of clubs etc. I used to always wonder – are they overdoing this? Maybe for these people being obsessed helps them to keep focus.

At 45 – injuries are given, other options like YOGA are always welcome which are more unifying and gives centeredness vs running which gives you a high and a sense of achievement.

Choose! Wisely!! 

Written on 15th Aug 

Running Log 2 - When D(ata) rules

That's D

So, It’s been 2 months of running now & here’s how the 2^nd months went

Data & Goal Setting: After my initial metric of “no of rounds of my apartment” I realized I needed larger goals something which is closer to what I want to achieve i.e. distance & time. After browsing through the net I downloaded runkeeper a simple app which started giving me very quickly – the no of km’s I ran in how much time. As I started looking at km’s / time – it gave a new dimension to my running.  I started relating my daily runs to my larger objective of a ½ marathon or a 10 k to start with. By the end of the month I did 6.37 km in 38.52 seconds & around 25 km/ week of only running. It also helped when I met my coach and fellow runners. For anyone who is starting up – this is a must.

Running on the roads: I always wondered Why would somebody do it, especially if you have a small circuit within your apartment. Not only it is dangerous, it is also toxic as u take in all the polluted air. My first run was to touch the Koramangla U turn from my apartment (inner ring road to Koramngala) that’s around 3.5 km. By the end of the month I was the going till the Ijipura Signal that’s 6.2 km. Running early helped me avoid the traffic still it was bad – one could smell shit & urine in parts of the road, sometimes it felt I was running a obstacle race as I had to avoid pot holes, water logged drains, construction material and jump into the so called footpath which was taken over & modified by most of the shops. But this was 500m or so but the fun was when you got of this space & moved to open road, it was lovely to run with the rising sun as if you are competing with it & at most part the air was fresh & it just felt good to run in an open area rather than going round & round the apartment – which becomes suffocating after some time. But the biggest benefit was in pushing yourself to just do a little bit more, once you are out you know you have to come back, if not for this I would not have touched 6.5 km in 2 months.

Shoes / Injuries: I had one large blister in my right feet and I was not comfortable with shoes but you cannot just go buy a Nike for 7k and later say – this is not working. For a communist minded Bong this was a NO GO. So I carried on, but by the end of the month my shin bones were paining not during the run or walk but in general. At 45+ this signals bother you & decided to read about this.

Deanne & D: I picked up Shut Up & Train by Deanne Pandey, just because that was the only book on fitness in the library & it turned out to be quite nice. Apart of generic nutrition, body & food It had a separate chapter on running & explained few things like strength training, breathing techniques while running etc. While it was nice to read but you can only do that much so I decided to go in for a coach. D came recommended by CKV, met him on a Sat at Lal Bagh after filling in a simple questionnaire. As I spoke to him he barked commands on how to do some exercise, explained why a particular injury happens & joked around with few. To me he said stop running for 2-3 weeks so that shin will heal else it might be detrimental plus told him a few exercise & send him a record of my food/sleep for a week. He was away from last week of Mar to May 1^st week, so we could start in May 1^st week & still do a half marathon by end of the year.

Driving back from Lal Bagh after a hearty breakfast at MTR I mused, although there was a sense of disappointment as I had to let go of my regime I felt this was the sensible thing to do. Yes the adrenalin rush was good for the first 2 months – it gave me the confidence that 10k is doable & half marathon I can complete but I will need help. Also I am in this for fun & for long run.

Written on 2 nd March

Running Log 1 - When every minute counts

Inspired Reading - Book gifted to me by Venkat

I have been a regular fitness person – walk-run-freehand exercise-yoga for an hr has been a 5 day routine since past 5 yrs. There will always be those usual days or weeks when you are travelling or not well but the underlying philosophy was to be fit. Going to gym, body building or having an instructor was anathema to me as I am a staunch believer of doing it yourself.

30 days back on 31^st Dec the marathon bug hit me, starting thought was – it will be tough but it will not be that tough. I am a fit person anyway.

After one month here are some after effects….

Starting up, after talking to a few 10 yr old runners &  a first time runner (who was my real inspiration) I was referred to www.runningandliving.com – I got the jist that I need to increase the stamina and hence increase my walking & running time. So I increased my walking time from 15 mnt to 45 mnt but the real challenge was to increase the running time. My typical running time was 3 to 5 mnts which is roughly 1.5 to 2 round of my apartment. As it’s easier to count no of ‘apartment rounds’ I could easily move from 2 to 3 but beyond that it was like climbing a mountain.

Body, one month has seen a shift in the body muscles. I can feel the muscles which I could not before I started running especially when I move my legs to push the accelerator in the busy traffic of Bangalore. I can feel the firmness in my tummy & arms as I move around but for the first half of the day body feels stretched & exhausted & by evening I am completely dead. Today I am nursing a blister & pains in my calf muscles. Getting a trainer is playing in my mind, what was an anathema might become a necessity.

Mind, I always believed in mind over body, for running (and as a preparation for marathon) your mind is the key (with my limited understanding of a month). The concentration, attention, the push to do the last round it’s all in the mind till your body gives out. But the bigger discovery was the thoughtless or a blank mind. With the current status of work occupying 70% of your waking hrs & the increased connectivity – work is all pervasive. Thankfully running has helped me in blanking out most of my thoughts in the early hrs of the day – something which books on Buddhism failed to achieve in spite of me spending a yr on them.

Music, I had given up listening to music while running(or walking) couple of years back as I wanted to listen to the birds but even at 6 – mostly it’s traffic noise & less of birds chirping. So the headphones are back & with that I have got back my classical music which keeps me focused on running. There are chords / beats / renditions I glossed when I heard it while working / driving / flying – now the same music has a different meaning. This re-ignited my search for more meaningful music

Food, like all true bongs I enjoy my gulab jamun & my beer but I was disciplined to maintain my morning fitness regime so that the fat don’t add up – and more importantly show in the middle. But it started showing up few months back when pants needed urgent alteration & I had to rush to pick up dark shirts so that the bulge was not conspicuous. At 40+ your body probably burns less calories, as your metabolism goes down somebody told me over beer. So I am on sabbatical (3 months), no booze, no sweets, no colas, no rice….I guess this is the most difficult change.

But, where am I on running, after all that philosophy.

When I spoke to a colleague a few weeks back, who has been running for last 10 yrs – his time was 2 hrs 20 for a half marathon & I am at 20 mnt. As I write this I realize that every agonizing minute counts the journey of 15 mnts took a month.

I have to add maybe another 5 hrs to my 20. Will I make it by end of the year. Too early to say but I am sure I will attempt one marathon & I guess it will also make me a better person… 

Written in end Jan 2015

Being Mortal – Atul Gawande

How important are the choices we make in life? Depends on the impact it will make rather you expect / estimate it will make to you / your life. But what if I tell you “you need to make a choice for your patient and make them day in day out and complicate it by saying that the decision is about how many months / days will your patient live.” It’s not an easy job for a person with conscience, who believes in “helping others deal with what medicine cannot do as well as it can” (That’s his line).

Sitting in Bangalore and reading Being Mortal takes me and I am sure all readers to our harrowing experience of meeting a doctor. I detest it – the very thought of going to Manipal Hospital gives me the creeps. I know that I am not going to a doctor but someone waiting there to literally play with my emotions & collect cash. This is very unlike the doctors I grew up with – they were more friends rather extension of our family. If you see any Hindi movie made in 70 (I was seeing the original Khoobsoorat), the doctor will invariably come with a suitcase and will be called Doctor Uncle / Doctor chacha & he will visit your home & not the other way around. Things have changed – not sure for good or bad.

I found the book quite philosophically appealing, few notings:

Nice questions to ask,

As the patient in front of you is making a life choice (to live or not) & being a doctor you have given the facts for her to make a choice. To pay a role of an equal partner some questions which the doctor asks to help the patient make the right choice. “What were her biggest fears & concerns? What goals were most important to her? What trade-offs, and what ones was she willing to make & what ones was she not?

I thought these were very nicely put & you could ask these questions not before a live or die operation but also when you are making A big decision in life – Imagine asking these questions when you are looking for a change in job.

Time & how it shrinks

Whenever you battle a deadline, time shrinks, and if it’s the end of life that changes your outlook or revisit your values n beliefs. Just like the author’s father I saw my father (75) – an atheist and a rebel (who refused to stop smoking) quit smoking and be more amenable to temple visits & amenable to discussions around religion. I have seen that of myself as I ride the 40’s I am more health conscious & avoid holding grudges & conflicts with family members & give in more easily – I would rather sleep well than carry a grudge to bed.

Philosophy & Profession

Mostly people will not associate philosophy with profession but with overall life & it’s values. Meaning how will you apply what you learn in your life (outside office) to your job or vice versa. Many of us rarely reflect on the work which we are doing – or reasons behind the decision which we make in our job.

But what life teaches you is very different & more intrinsic as compared to what you learn reading business books or attending a seminar. Being Mortal – merges the professional & the personal as a single person and shows the dilemmas which we all face in job – being doctor is more difficult as compared to a business head because it’s more visible & stark but both of us are taking decisions which will effects the life of our people. The underlying philosophy of a doctor should be healing & not giving a solution or stating a fact and asking the patient to take a decision like an ATM. As a leader our job is to help the team member do the job given to her & not fix the KRA’s & expect her to do the same. The joy I felt of turning around an individual or making him proud of his work always gave me a much bigger high than the quarterly target. But then you have to be ready to defend your position & have a much larger sense of ownership – because you own the individual, his shortcomings & all his problems related to him. Unless you know that you can never help him grow.

Old Age

My most vivid picture of old age & its desperation is when I saw one of my relative who at the age of 80+ had to be bathed – dressed and taken to toilet. He was not allowed to eat sweets as he was diabetic and was on insulin. All bones with no teeth’s and barely able to move n talk, one day as he was talking his grand - daughter who was having sweets and was unaware of the fact gave the sweets to him. After half n hr when his daughter saw him eating she had to snatch it from his tightened fist, but he held on to it and cried to have few morsels of the sweets as his daughter kept telling it’s not good for him and can be fatal for him.

Relationship

The book deals with relationships of a different kind – when one member is in a very dependable state, when both of them are very old, when a daughter want’s to genuinely take care of her mother and puts her in a senior living home where she feels stifled and prefers being at home. Most of us are dealing with it – especially when we hit our 40’s & our parents hit 70 & of course our children are in their teens. Many of us deal with it objectively like a problem to be taken care of i.e. rationally – like the kind of facilities in a senior living place or moving your parent to your city where we are currently working so that you can take care of them.

It’s a difficult choice to make – parents are happy where they are (in their own city) even if they feel lonely at times they get to spend their evenings with their friends & they love the independence. These get accentuated when someone is unwell & completely dependent on other people and if you add to that the scarcity of a genuine doctor who really cares for your well being & not purse plus work & growing up children’s at home & of course our crazy schedule.

The book makes you think on the choices you make or are making.

Driving By – Random Notes - 1

The Boy

The boy must be in class 3^rd. Yellow shirt, cheque pants, black shoes. Thin – very thin, heavy school bag, but what caught my eyes was the fear in his eyes. There were 3 cars in front of me – every time the child wanted to cross the road some car/ truck / tempo traveller would move an inch or a motorbike would screech to a halt or somebody would honk loudly & he would step back. Grasping his bag more tightly as time went by I could read his mind – Late for class, again. As I moved closer to him - I told him. WAIT! Go to zebra crossing!! Should I drop you ahead?

I don’t think he understood – but I felt him loosen up, smile. The car in front of me moved ahead & as I inched ahead my eyes were glued to the boy in my side view mirror, after some time I saw him walk through the maze of traffic. My eyes followed, but my heart was in my mouth. Zig Zagging between the cars, bikes, trucks he managed to reach the other end. Both of us smiled together, heaved a sigh of relief and moved ahead - he toward his school, me towards my office. 

Mission Accomplished! Phew!!

The couple

They were very old – definitely 70+. They were on the other side of road at the bus stand. I was on the opposite side of the road waiting for the light to go green. It was a long wait and as I sat there waiting I spotted them. The lady was holding the man, firmly and speaking to him continuously. Both of them looked terrified, they were waiting for a bus to board. Every time a bus would come the lady would move ahead & try to read the no of the bus then come back first hold her husband’s hand & say something loudly – I guess that this is not the bus. As they moved towards the bus they had to battle the regular office goers – so once they were sure the bus is not the right one, they would go away from the crowd & stand in the corner. Both of them wearing heavy spectacle and I presume they had difficulty in reading the no.

This went on for 5 buses and I moved on. I don’t know if they got the bus, but for the rest of my journey & a long time after that the scene played out in front of me – the understanding between the couple a mix of worry, relief & the comfort which they could only provide to each other.

Written on 17^th Jan 2015

TOI – You stole my front page!!

Today’s TOI, Jan 17^th has been taken over by Apple. Vodafone has taken Front – front inside, back-back inside. Bangalore Times has Apple MacBook – full page ad. So we had iPhone 6 staring at us from TOI & MacBook staring at us from Bangalore Times.

I am sure the marketing & sales team would be waiting for the sales number to come in on Monday, later in the year - the media agency will gleefully wait in an award function for a media innovation award and TOI revenues would have gone up drastically.

What about the reader?

I am one of those 40+ who cannot yet adapt to the online newspaper reading. I need to feel the newspaper in my hand to call it reading, same goes with books, I would rather lug around a 100 page Murakami across airports than read it in Kindle. Let that be an aside.

Does it shows in a way the crass commercialization of a basic thing like newspaper. The fundamental objective of a newspaper is the news which is inserted somewhere between the ad’s. Also the nature of advertising has shifted from informing about the product to informing about the offers – especially with the e-commerce sites brandishing there discounted products in front pages, thanks to the millions they have raised from venture funds.

As a father I am worried about the impact the same has on a child’s mind – how would a 10 or 14 year old react to the offers? It’s obvious – Let’s buy them. Buy them now. Let’s buy one more – the offer won’t last. Ever aspiring for something new!! It’s ok to waste or have more than 1 jean or shoes because I am getting 2 at the price of one. There is a fundamental shift in their mind from scarcity to having more choices. Having too many choices is a larger problem. From ‘’which jean”, to ‘’which offer’’ to offline or online or mobile!!!! They are sifting through all these information in addition to the maths, physics & chem.

I know there is too much at stake for Apple & Times of India & the media agencies so I have decided to stop the TOI.

Written on 17^th Jan 2015

Keeping the tradition alive in 21st century

For most of us when the holiday list was shared 15^th Jan looked like a long weekend staring at us. The day being a Thursday, if you take Friday off you get 4 days – somebody quipped. It’s Mysore, Goa or Phuket – maybe a cycling expedition or a food / photography trail – which is in vogue these days. Oh! Of course all formats – online / offline - So flipkart to Big Bazaar will be on sale – Flat 50% off only for the weekend. Welcome to the consumer economy. How much can you buy I wonder?

My baba traveled from a village in the easternmost part of Bengal in 1949 enlisted in Armed Forces served the country for 35 years or so, fought in 2 wars & retired 15 years back. But in all those years, 13^th night was always the same – it didn't matter if he was posted in Kashmir, Kanpur, and Hyderabad. He has to spend the 13^th night making pithe. I do not think an exact translation is available in English language – calling it sweet is like calling ostrich a bird. It’s a traditional Bengali sweet made out of rice flour & coconut (sounds weird as I write it) on the occasion of Shankranti – a harvest festival.

My fondest memory of Shankranti is to go along with baba to the market hunt for a place where they could dry grind the rice (make rice flour) the most important ingredient of making pithe then buy coconut, jaggery & come back home loaded. Of course we will order 3 times the milk – again a very important part of the ingredient. Then there is something called a kuruni (kind of scraper but again not the right translation) which is kept aside only for this one day. Later as the fridge entered our house, we would keep a special kind of jaggery called patali gud in the refrigerator.

Post dinner the master chef of our house would spread everything around him and start – with me & mom as assistants, me for tasting, and she for helping & learning. The pithe making & storytelling of what happened in his village would go on till midnight. Once done, the entire house would be filled with this unique smell of milk, sweets, coconut. In those days there were no refrigerator so we would spread all types of pithe’s in a corner, cover them with newspaper and go to sleep in the same room – that being a 1 room flat.  

As a kid I used to look forward to the 13^th night – although it happened every single year – the sweets were the same; the process was the same I used to become feverish with excitement. There was something innocent about the whole affair. I guess in those days – with no malls to go to, no TV to turn to, no mobile & internets these were the small occasions we would look forward to & it bound the family together.

Cut to 2015 – Baba at present enjoying a longish breaks at the same village from where I am guessing he learnt to make these pithe’s from his maa & baudi’s, pre pone’s his night out by a few days. He makes 3 types of pithe’s & couriers it to me by DTDC. And bang on that reaches me on the 10^th – few days before Shankranti.

I reflect on the effort & hung my head in shame. As a family we would have spent hours staring at the TV screen as the master chef takes us from US to Australia, we live with the contestants every single day & our heart skips if Laura gets eliminated & tears flow if our favorite contestant fails to win. Here is a 75 year old live person carrying the tradition of food making in his head & making it with his own hand but we haven’t had time to learn the same – at least in the name of keeping the tradition alive.

Thanks! Baba is all I can say. Next time I will give it a shot & inch towards my 3^rd bok phul ;)

Wrote on 10/01/2015

Voices

The first time we heard their voice was in 2000 when Niki was born & 2003 when Joyee was born. It was a cry – I guess that’s how all of us start to make sound. Over last 14 years they learnt to speak – starting from garbled words to the right word to the right diction.

On June 14, the voices faded away and the house grew silent. It is a strange experience when you live in a house which had all kind of voices filled in every nook & corner of house. Discussions / decisions / games / fights / crying / movie reviews / seeing TV together & so on & so forth.

As the days passed we craved for these voices and tried to create our own pseudo ways of recalling them. We started hearing their voices through things associated with them – like TV shows which they were glued on.

We would let the master chef play in the background just to have some presence in the house – we know the sofas are empty but in our mind as we cook or carry on with our homely chores we can visualize the kids sitting & sweating it out to find out who is getting eliminated.

We would see the entire season of - “Once upon a Time” all over again because these shows in some sense took us back to the time we spent together, more importantly it brought alive all the discussions & story telling done by Joyee as would inadvertently would have missed a few episodes.

It’s a startling contradiction we parents live with – when the kids were here they will bring the house down because of their fights, debates, discussions, finally one of us would step in & after lot of arguments 2 of them would go back to their corners. As parents we never enjoy the fights & it’s after effects. We would often say to each other – when will these kids grow up & make peace.

Now, when they did grow up & leave – the peace becomes unbearable at times. We keep waiting for the vacation to begin when the nook & corner of our house will once again get filled with voices - laughter, screams, shouts, discussions, compliments, wishes…….anything which will make both of us to live through till the next vacation. 

Come soon Babes…

Wrote on 06/01/2015

A thousand Splendid Suns

I read Kite Runners long- long time back, the plot is there somewhere in the back of my mind but the thing I remember most about the book is the innocence of childhood friendship, losing it & the scars it leaves behind – a very poignant tale which reverberates in your heart a long time after you have kept the book down. Nikita read it in her summer hols & loved it. She is 15 – since then she has been after us to buy “A thousand splendid Suns”. She went back to her boarding but I got hold of the book in our library last week – I finished it in 2 sittings.

This is a book which tells you the life of 2 women in a war torn Afghanistan from 1973 to 2003. 30 years of Afghanistan (Kabul) seen through the eyes, heart n soul of Mariam & Laila. While the warlords of Mujahedeen & Taliban set rules of living outside the house the man of the house sets the rule inside the house – rules for the women. Religion, rather its interpretation is fundamental to both of them – whether it’s the Taliban or it’s Rashid – Mariam & Laila’s husband. The violence at home & outside is stark. But there are also bouts of love, hope & longing which keep’s the readers engaged till the end. After the first few pages you are literally living with Mariam & thinking ahead on what more can happen to her.

The book shows the impact of war on personal life. Sitting in the living room and watching the bombs drop in Afghanistan is one thing & reading the life story of 2 women in a war torn Afghanistan where parents get blown by a rocket launcher, brothers become shahid because they are fighting for jehad, or a misdirected missiles hits a truck & killing most of the refugees travelling in truck – moves you on a different level. It gives you a perspective on how war or conflict can have a fundamental impact on society which can be felt by few generations after the war is over.

Caught between the crossfire’s of warlords & politics, most Afghani’s fled their home & at one point there were around 8 million Afghanistan refugees in Iran & Pakistan living in horrific conditions. In fact the book took shape in the author’s mind when he visited one of the refugee camps.

There are several questions which came to mind – the first and foremost being, is it something my 15 year old should read? The answer after some thinking was a strong YES. She should know how cruel the world outside can be & how religion fundamentalism can shape personal / society / country & at some point world future. How being a women can be detrimental to one’s life in certain parts of the world. I know the next question from her will be - What next? Or So What? I do not have an answer but awareness is knowledge. The book raises many questions in your mind & children her age should spend time thinking / discussing it with her friends. One should go beyond the Twilight series & read books which pose questions about the world we live in & this is one such book.

Who is to be blamed? Religion – Politics - The Individual? As I read the book it was an instant disgust for what Taliban had done – if you read the Shari’a rules you will think – this can’t happen in today’s world.

I am mentioning a few below: Singing is forbidden. Dancing is forbidden. Playing cards, playing chess & kite flying are forbidden. Writing books, watching films & painting pictures are forbidden. For women – If you laugh in public you will be beaten. You will not paint your nails. If you do you will lose a finger. You will not under any circumstance, show your face. You will cover your face with burqa when outside. If you do not, you will be severely beaten.

But from Taliban’s point – they were only enforcing what was sanctioned by their religion.

When Russians invaded Afghanistan they brought in their rules - women were not only practicing law & medicine. So from our stand point we would say Russians were good for the country.

Afghanistan like Indian kingdoms had several tribes – pashtun, Tajik, ??, ?? who had become warlords & divided Afghanistan for their benefits. The warlords were trained & mostly funded by US to counter Russians. The warlords had their personal interest in making money.

Sitting in 2014 – this is history & history can only be read, understood, dissected, analyzed – but cannot be lived. To some extent you can relive those times by reading a book like – Thousand Splendid Suns / Half of a Yellow sun (Nigeria) / The Buro Quartet (Indonesia) / The millennium Series (Europe) are some of the books I loved reading.

I recollect what one of my prof used to tell us again & again before starting discussion on any business case – In retrospect all of us are the best strategist & will have all the answers, put your selves in the CEO’s shoes at that point in time & think what you would have done, In real life ‘maybe’ does not exist – It’s either a YES or NO.

Wrote on 01/12/2014

Feeling Lucky

Maybe it’s someone I spoke to some time back who is suffering badly because of a life threatening disease while I thought he was partying in Goa or maybe it’s the Air Asia Plan crash or the blast which happened at Church Street, Bangalore or the book by Dalai Lama which I finished today. But the feeling that I end the year with is “I am lucky!”

How often do we say that to ourselves? Rarely, I guess it’s the way our measures of happiness have changed over the years; we don’t believe in celebrating or enjoying the present moment but are always on a chase / search for the perfect moment.

Coming home before the sun has set from your work (a rarity in today’s world) sitting in the balcony of your own house watching the elegant eagles floating in air, having hot tea & jhal muri with your loved one. As the world outside goes into a tizzy to celebrate the last 4 hrs of 2014, we prefer to just sit & chat and I feel lucky just being able to do this.

As the sun sets on 2014 I end the year surrendering to Gulzar saab’s voice & songs playing from one of my favorite cassette (yes! I still listen to my cassettes in the days of MP3 N MP4) – a double album called “Dil dhoondta hai” which has Gulzar reciting poetry in his gravelly voice followed by a song from his film.

Here’s one - “Kitni choti choti si khwaish leker chal dete hain hum – ek ghar, ek angan, ek chulha, bas itni si zamin our use dhapne  ke liya itna sa aasman….So true guzar sahib! Happy New Year!!

You can listen to the song (not the shairi) from his movie Dil dhoondtaa Hai….here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3TW899qJAQ sung beautifully by Bhupinder.

Wrote on 31/12/2014