Never Start with Constraints

This could, by far, be one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learnt. It came about in the most non serious environ, but it’s one that just stayed, to be applied on almost anything I take up, and I wouldn't be far from the truth if I said it’s enabled a lot of change in life since.

We were planning an offsite in Google, an offsite which is typically a day out from office. We hear this new manager say, 'how about an offsite to Goa'? First there’s silence……and then there’s questions from every side. But we need to do it in a day…what about approvals.......there’s folks who can’t come overnight……how about the budget...and so on. And he’s like…….. First, do we want to do it? If the answer is a yes, then lets figure out those constraints. If we start with the constraints, we’ll never get to the ‘ I want to go’ bit. 

And what, at that point, seemed impossible, we made happen. We actually listed the constraints and found solutions to each, initially seemingly impossible constraints started to resolve themselves out. And we did Goa, and that was one of the best offsites I had in Google, and what’s more, it almost set a trend after that.

That’s a lesson that stayed.

It's a Choice !

And if you think about it, you’ll see this as a pattern. The moment you think of something, suggest something, that little bit different, that little stretched, that little out of comfort zone; people, meaning us, are first thinking of all the reasons why it can't be done; the difficulties, the effort, the risks, the constraints…..and the strange thing is that every move out of the norm will throw up tons of those.

Can we look beyond, rather.... can we at least flip over the sequence. Say we’ll do it because we want to, and then tackle the questions. 

Once you have the want articulated, it’s amazing to see the alacrity with which things move, and what you make possible. You first need to truly want and believe in the possibility. It can be the smallest want, or even the life changing ones. The key is to separate out the thought processes. First have the want clear. And then the issues. 

Next time you hit that situation, just become that little bit more aware.......just have this thought in your head of ‘never start with constraints’ and you’ll see how things start to unravel differently. It will make life that much more beautiful. Its again about moving out of comfort zone in order to grow, in order to experience life in its amazingly differing dimensions.

Choice - An Acquired Ability

This is a continuation of the talk on Choice. Here's an interesting experiment on 'Choice' done with children, 7 to 9 year olds, in the US.

Half the children in the experiment were Anglo American and the other half were Asian American. The children were broken into three groups. Each group was brought into a room which had six piles of anagrams and markers in different colors. The first group was asked to choose whichever pile of anagrams they wanted and also whichever color marker they wanted to write their answers with. The second group was given a specific pile of anagrams and markers, and were told it was chosen for them by Ms Smith, the facilitator of the experiment. And the third group was also given specific anagrams and markers, except, they were told that they had been chosen by their mother. In fact the second and third groups were also given the same anagrams that the first group had chosen, just to make the results objective and comparable.

There were striking differences in how the groups performed . Essentially the same activity done by the children, but remarkable difference in output just by the way the exercise was presented to them.

The Anglo Americans did two and a half times more accurately when they chose the activity themselves, than when compared to when the activity was chosen for them. The tasks chosen by Ms.Smith and their mother yielded similar results. So, it didn’t matter who did the choosing, but if the task was dictated by another, their performance suffered.

In contrast, Asian Americans did best when they thought the activity was chosen by their mothers, second best when they chose for themselves, and least well when chosen by Ms.Smith.

The first generation Asian American children were strongly influenced by their immigrant parents approach to choice. For them, choice was not a way of asserting individuality, but a way of creating community and harmony by deferring to the people who made their choices for them. If they had a concept of being true to oneself, that self most likely was composed not of an individual but of a collective. Success was about pleasing others more than about satisfying ones own preferences. 

Americans on the other hand, seem to thrive on choice. People who have grown up in this paradigm find it motivating to be able to choose. 

Americans tend to believe that they've reached some kind of pinnacle in the way they practice choice. They believe choice best fulfills an innate and universal desire of all humans. If a choice effects you, then you should be the one making the choice. The primary focal point of Choice is the Individual. Its called being true to yourself. 

People who have grown up in a culture that encourages choice believe that the more choices there are, the better the choice you make. While in other cultures, not as used to choice, it can actually provoke feelings like confusion, constraint, and even fear. Our ability to perceive differences in the options available is what leads to our ability of making choices. And to that extent its acquired. 

No matter where we're from, we all have a responsibility to open ourselves up to a wider array of what choice can do, and what it can represent. And this does not lead to a paralyzing moral relativism. Rather, it teaches us when and how to act. It brings us that much closer to realizing the full potential of choice, to inspiring the hope and achieving the freedom that choice promises but doesn't always deliver. If we learn to speak to one another, albeit through translation, then we can begin to see choice in all its strangeness, complexity and compelling beauty.

Choice Overload

This is from a talk giving by a guest speaker, back in Google. It was  on ‘How to make Choosing easier’. 

It’s a little surprising that even making a choice needs to be made easier, but apparently there is something called a choice overload. 

Today we know that walking into a super market means exercising a choice many times over, be it in oils, shampoos,or jams, in fact most products. They apparently did an experiment in a store that sold 336 kinds of jams. They had a counter outside the store, one with 6 different flavors of jams and one with 24 flavours of jams, each over one week. And the survey showed that more people stopped at the counter with 24 flavours of jam than they did at the counter with 6 flavours. However, on actual sales, the counter with 24 flavours sold 3% and the one with 6 flavors actually sold 30%. So effectively the one with 6 flavors sold more.

People were likely to actually buy more, when given a lesser choice.

              Jams/Marmalades

    in a Supermarket in Germany

Apparently this holds true even in more consequential decisions. When there’s too much choice, we choose not to choose.

This was a study done on retirement plans in the US. The survey was done on a million employees, covering 600 plans all over US, and they found that the more funds offered in the plan, the lesser the participation. Plans that offered 2 funds had a saving rate of 70% while plans that offered 60 funds had savings rate drop to 60%. 

What they also found is that even when there is a choice made, too much choice results in three consequences:

1. Procrastination: people tend to delay making the choice
2. Decision quality: likely to make the wrong choices
3. Satisfaction: likely to feel less satisfied, even if its an objective right choice

Key is to be choosy in making a choice :)

And a more interesting factor was how 'making a choice' was a factor of culture, with the Americans believing in the right and freedom to choice in almost every decision, but not so the Asians, who seemed to be comfortable with choices being made for them.

The Other Perspective

‘I don’t agree with you, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it’ – Voltaire

Life would be so much easier if we could all agree that there will always be other opinions, other perspectives. We expend so much energy in trying to get others to look at things from our own point of view, our perspective, somewhere believing that we are right. Sure, we could be right, but we may be right from our point of view only, and fact is...... there can always be other rights.

There’s a small story they told us during Vipassana, it’s a story from ancient India, which has since crossed into other traditions of Jain, Buddhist, Sufi, and Hindu lore, to essentially bring out the relativity of subjective experience: 

A monk , has an elephant presented to four blind men and asks them to describe what they think. To know what it was they each felt the elephant with their hands. Only, they each felt different parts of the elephant. The man feeling the leg said it was a tree stump. The man feeling the tail said it was a mouse. The man feeling the ear said it was a sheath of leather and the man feeling the trunk said it was a snake.

                                     

So each came up with a radically different explanation for what it was. Now each of them is right, from their own perspective they are right. But is it the only right? No, there are more rights than one. And, It’s also about seeing or knowing a truth, but possibly not knowing the entire truth.

We all view life from inside of our own frame; a frame that gets built over the years, through ego, habits, memories, thoughts, perceptions, emotions; about the self and about life. And we’re somehow constantly trying to align others perceptions to our own, almost believing that that is the reality. But think of the elephant and the blind men and you’ll see that they also have a perception of the same reality, but one that’s radically different to the others.

So first thing we need to understand and accept is that there are multiple realities, and everyone sees their own.

Does that mean perceptions never change? That people cannot agree?

No, perceptions can change and in fact that’s what learning and growing is. Sure we can also try to effect that change in others, but the actual change will happen only when the other is ready and willing. So attaching our expectations to the change in the other can be an energy sap. 

Here I’d again go back to the all encompassing guideline of ‘Accept what you cannot change, Change what you cannot accept, and Pray you have the Wisdom to know the difference’

The Evasive Obvious

It’s kind of strange how, many a time, in to the process of solving an issue, we put in a lot of effort, to find later that the best solution was the most obvious......and for whatever reason, we’d missed it. So what is it that prevents our seeing it in the first place?

                                   

Let me do this through an example:

A couple of days back, the day I’d put up the post on Integrated Energy Centers, a friend called to say that the pictures weren’t showing up. My immediate reaction was, ‘oh… you should clear your cache and cookies and restart your computer and try’. I didn’t pause to think that the issue might have been at my end. First pitfall there….. :)

Later in the day I happened to see the blog on another laptop, and realized the issue was indeed at my end, the pictures weren't showing up there either. I tried reloading all the pictures, and unfortunately for me, this was one post which had a lot of pictures, so lots of effort. Still didn’t work. I checked the blogger help center, and went up the wrong tree there, thinking it was a storage space issue. Another hour gone. I then used other apps to work on the pictures, paint, adobe, picture manager, drive, so many. Nothing worked. By this time I’d worked myself into a real obsessed mood. I was three hours into trying and nothing was working. I got in touch with friends at Google to see if there was a bug on blogger. There wasn’t. I got on the blogger forum, and there was one really helpful guy, Kobus, who tried telling me what I was doing wrong. Initially I found myself resisting even his solutions, saying that’s not what I was doing. I went to bed with the problem unsolved. Got up in the morning with the realization that I had all along missed the obvious. 

I was searching for solutions in the wrong space, and it took me to step back from the entire problem to see what I’d missed. I was searching among shortcuts and in the process, I’d lost sight of the direct path. It sure was a lesson. 

Sometimes, in our anxiety to find the solution, we find ourselves in the middle of complex and convoluted paths, and get so caught up in there, that we don’t see the straight path to the solution.

How can we watch for this? When stuck in a situation that needs resolving, keep in mind:

1. What is my objective? Never lose sight of that

2. What’s the best way to get there? Find that right path. If needed have a Plan B

3. Chalk out the process for Plan A, and work on that per process. Only if needed get to Plan B

Seems obvious enough, right?  But it's obviously not ;)

Navadarshanam

The other day when I’d gone to this store ‘shop for a cause’ to buy my home composter, I noticed they had organic food on sale and from Navadarshanam. Because it was from Navadarshanam, I picked up a bottle of Aavakai.

I opened it yesterday and it blew me….it was so good….finger lickin’ good. And it took me back to the trip I’d taken to Navadarshanam, all of 4 years back.

Navadarshanam, is this small commune around 50 kms outside of Bangalore, near Ganganahally village off the Anekal road. It’s a community of around fifteen to twenty folks who decided to, so to say, move away from the madding crowd and create for themselves an alternate way of life. In their own words they are looking to explore ecological and spiritual alternatives to the modern way of living.

Its origin can be traced to a study circle of the Gandhi Peace Foundation of IIT Delhi, way back in the 1970s and 80s, and from there the concept was made a reality in late 1990s.

The entire place has this really rustic feel to it, with everything being eco focused. Even the houses are built to be eco friendly; aesthetic and close to nature.  The houses are spaced out such that standing outside one house you almost can't see any of the other houses. High on privacy even within the commune. They boast of almost no electronic gadgets, no ACs, no fridge, no fans and definitely no TVs, and what’s more their lighting is entirely solar powered. When I called them to check if I could come and see the place, this gentleman called Nagarajan ( if my memory serves me right), says…..we’re really not a place you come and see you know, it’s a way of life, you’ll need to stay a couple of days to experience it. I then didn’t live in Bangalore and I convinced him I was super keen, and while I couldn't stay two days, I would still like to spend the day, and that’s what we did. They essentially encourage people who can connect with identify with their principles and way of life. Girija and I made a day trip there.

It was simply wonderful. It's a way of life that is simple, quiet, yet deep. By simple, I mean very removed from the typically materialistic or consumerist life of urban living. Quiet, in a literal and metaphorical sense too...literal, is because it's in the midst of nature and what you hear are mostly nature noises, and metaphorical as they have also distanced themselves from the social circle with its occasions and expectations. It's deep, for being simple and quiet, plus a more consciously internalized way of life.

One fundamental thing is that you don't own the property, you build your own house, designed per your want, live in it until you want to or to the end, and I think you can kind of bequeath to your children though I'm not sure of that, but the property belongs to the trust. It's about living in the now.

They have a community kitchen with the most amazing food. Cooking is done by local women and the community members. Simple, wholesome and organic, I had the best ever pulihogare there. If food were taken as symbolic, and like a parallel to life.........and organic food can taste like that as compared to what stuff from the super market tastes today, I’d be really apprehensive of delving into what this whole move away from nature has done to life in general.

They have access to neither newspaper nor books, and to me that was like appalling, so when I ask how….he goes ‘this is chewing the cud time’. Well, more evolved folks I guess.

I don’t have my own pictures from the trip, but here’s one I found online. It’s on this tinne, (verandah) that girija and I spent the whole afternoon just experiencing the serenity and spiritual aura of the place, and we definitely returned enriched for the experience.

                                                       

(Pic credit: Anita Bora...with thanks)

For those who might want to know more, here's the link: Navadarshanam 

Interstellar

I’ve been toying with, or rather resisting, writing about Interstellar, because it’s just so ‘ínter’ on so many issues beyond just stars. I loved it, not just for my sheer love and fascination for anything to do with space, but also because Christopher Nolan has broken so many barriers in there, between Physics and Philosophy, Emotion and Science, Space..Time and Relationships.

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About space itself, he’s brought in those complex concepts of black holes, time distortions, worm holes and space warps into easy grasp, without our needing to know too much about the theory of relativity or quantum mechanics, though knowing would add value I'm sure.

And then, unlike most other space movies, he brings in the humane elements of relationships, emotions, want, interwoven with or rather, beyond the existing space and time dimensions. 

I read somewhere that the movie is a cultural event, and I tend to agree. It is like a potential cultural shift. And what’s amazing is that none of it seems improbable, it all sounds like it could happen, and we just haven’t yet broken through the how of it. If Gravity was a visual thriller, a virtual space experience,  this one is that plus a real mind bender. 

I’m not going into what the story line is, and how the movie unfolds, but just into instances or rather concepts in the movie which really caught my attention.

The communication through gravity and morse code, which Matthew McConaughey is using to communicate with his daughter from a parallel universe, and how she senses and recognizes it.  It's complete acceptance of it as real. She knows it as a Ghost, and I like how she has absolutely no fear. As when you 'know' there is no fear. I’ve always been piqued by the ability to talk beyond the existing space time dimension, as in telepathy or through the Ouija board, one across space and the other across time. All possibilities. 

While the movie is about space, the underlying theme is still love. And it explores love from such different angles, love that literally transcends time, where the experience of varying levels of gravity on different planets, has the father younger than the daughter. How does this love translate when the ages get reversed? Does love for a daughter differ from love for a mother, is it irrespective of age? Is it a person to person equation or is it more of role play? Interesting thoughts there.

The part where he folds the paper to show how the worm hole works. A simple explanation to shift from a linear dimension of time to breaking the time barrier. The analogy of climbing up a mountain into the future, and climbing down into the past. Enables such an easy understanding of how space and time are dimensions as grasped by the mind.

How he sneaks in the idea that nothing is co-incidence but that there could be a much larger design at work. Like the way Matthew McConaughey lands at the NASA station when he’s neither looking for them nor they for him, yet he's their guy. Yet again when he’s lost in space and the rangers find and rescue him. Is it his 'will' connecting to the intelligence of the universe?

Not to miss out TARS, he was so up there with his comic relief and spoof on human frailties.

Thank You Christopher Nolan, I thought it was a spectacular experience, the journey into outer space, into parallel universes, that bit surreal and sublime and that bit possible. Am hoping to catch it again, knowing I’ll see more when I do…as one is want to do in a good book :)

Handling Stress in the Moment

Everyone’s pretty agreed on long term solutions to handling stress, like walking, yoga, meditation, sleep and the like. I recently saw an article by ‘Rebecca Knight’ which talks of quick fix solutions to handling stress of the moment, which I thought might be useful in those times:

A study by Nielson for Everest College indicates that 80% of Americans work under stress ( forgive most statistics being America based, but then most of these extensive researches seem to emanate there, so let’s give it to them for it, and for asking the right questions too). And then, I’m sure the statistic can only be similar, if not more stretched here considering we work under way more repressed conditions.

(Why do we have all this stress at all….does it make sense for it to have become such an accepted part of life? Bigger questions, needing deeper answers…so we won’t go there now…..but it surely shouldn’t be the norm it is today, right?) 

Low pay, unreasonable workloads, and hectic commutes are apparently the top reasons for stress, followed by stress caused by co-workers. And apparently what exacerbates the problem is that people enter work places already laden with stress from home. So it’s stress all the way round.

The techniques on handling stress in the moment:

1) Identify your stress signals

Train yourself to recognize ‘your physiological signs of stress’. Perhaps your neck stiffens, your stomach clenches, or your palms sweat. These are all the result of what’s happening inside your body. When you’re able to recognize the signs — instead of ignoring them — you’ll be able to start addressing the underlying cause of the stress.

2) Talk yourself down

When you’re stressed, the voice inside your head gets loud, screechy, and persistent. It tells you: “I’m so angry,” or “I’ll never be able to do this.” To keep this negative voice at bay, “try talking to yourself in a logical, calm tone and injecting some positivity” into your internal dialogue.

3) Take three deep breaths

Deep breathing is another simple strategy for alleviating in-the-moment tension. “When you feel anxious, your breath starts to get shorter, shallower, and more irregular “Taking three big breaths while being conscious of your belly expanding and contracting ignites your parasympathetic nervous system, which induces a relaxation response.” 

4) Enlist a friendly ear

You shouldn’t have to face nerve-wracking moments alone. “Everyone needs to have somebody they trust who they can call on when they’re feeling under pressure,” “Select this person carefully: You want it to be somebody with whom you have a mutual connection and who, when you share your vulnerabilities, will respond in a thoughtful manner.” Sometimes venting your frustrations aloud allows you to regroup; at other times, it’s helpful to hear a new perspective. This kind of relationship takes time to build and requires nurturing, and it’s likely you will be asked to return the favor. “When you do, it’s incredibly gratifying to be on the other end.”

5) Make a list

Creating a to-do list that prioritizes your most important tasks is another way to combat feeling overwhelmed. “The act of writing focuses the mind,” “Do a brain dump and write out everything you need to do and note which are ‘important’ and which of those items are ‘urgent.’

I’m sure we’ve all used each of these at one point or the other, but it’s still good to see them as one ratified list. The ones that really work for me are the last two. Making a list ( It’s what I do everyday; I love the process of ticking off the tasks completed, very satisfying indeed). And talking to a friend,......never lets me down. Find what works for you, and do make the effort to recognize and reduce stress. Goes a long way towards a more productive and peaceful life.

Integrated Energy Centers

I visited four of our Integrated Energy Centers today, located in four different slums of Bangalore. When we set off for the day, guided by our field coordinator Yuva Kumar, I was wondering why we were visiting four different slums. And by the end of the day I understood, more clearly than ever before, what SELCO means when it says extensive customization and innovation is needed to be able to have a clear impact at that level of the demographic, the different layers of poverty and awareness is so vast that the one brush for all just doesn’t work. And that seems to be the bane of a lot of our development programs. They are formulated sitting in offices, based on metrics and they just cannot bridge the gap between knowing at the theoretical level and what the ground reality is.

Firstly, what is an Integrated Energy Center,(IEC)?  It’s a center created in a slum, which has the solar energy system installed to power all the shacks in the community with a single bulb each, and the center itself is enabled to provide additional facilities like solar freezers, projectors, mobile charging stations, schools and such other add ons depending on need and ability of each slum. They are run on either owned or operated models again depending on capacity of the slum.

I’m writing about two of these here, Kariyammana Agrahara and Timmasandra

Kariyammana Agrahara

This is a slum located in the center of an IT belt near Marathahalli, and you can imagine how the stark contrast of the tall glass buildings with the hip IT crowd to the people who inhabit the slum hits you. We’re all aware the gap exist, but we’ve not really seen seen it.

It’s 300 shacks tightly packed together, for lack of space I guess. They're all these single units made of poles and plastic sheets with almost no real protection against any risks. There's easy entry for creepy crawlies, rain water, drunken men, anything. Plus, there's none of the basic infrastructure we take so much for granted. No electricity, no water, no toilets, no space. The slums I've visited earlier in Hyderabad, to meet students of Smile Foundation, now look like middle class living in comparison. 

The IEC is housed in a small shop run by Kumar, who is now our operator there. The solar installation can at a time charge a hundred batteries which can light one bulb each, and that’s the lighting the slum has for four hours each evening, and that’s been there for four years now. It's on a monthly rental basis of Rs.200 for the single bulb facility.

The entry to the slum, and after that it goes on like a maze

Into the slum

The Battery Charging unit at the IEC

The single bulb in Ganga's house

A SELCO innovation; a chimney on this stove

An outlet from the stove attached to an asbestos
 pipe on the outside

At the IEC

A School being run in the IEC; it's a tie up between SELCO
and an NGO that runs schools in slums

Two dogs totally focused on a monkey on the tree;
real cute it was

The really positive thing there, is how enterprising Kumar is. Last year he approached SELCO saying he’d like to be able to sell cool drinks and ice creams for the slum dwellers during summer, and SELCO has now installed a Solar Freezer in his shop. He also runs a projector on which he shows a movie every two or three days and charges Rs.10 for adults and Rs.5 for children. Additionally, he also has a mobile charging station at Rs.5 per hour of charging which is what has enabled all those households to own and use a cell phone, which as you can imagine is in itself a huge impact on their lives and livelihoods. Here I saw faith and enterprise against the greatest odds, and the empowerment enabled by the focus and support that SELCO has offered. Instilled faith all over again...…..

Thannisandra

This is a community of around 30 shacks, all in one straight line on the edge of an inner road that’s not in use, very open and airy. It’s a community of Dholak sellers from Uttar Pradesh, from a village in Fatehpur, 60 kms from Lucknow. What hits you at first go is how everyone seems to just be there, men, women and children, no one at work, no one at school. And the number of children made me think of Pied Piper, each family has like five or six; it’s thirty families but there must have been atleast a hundred children between the age group of one and twelve.

On the surface, full of life and joy. But the story is one of utter despair. This group of people came searching for better livelihood options to Bangalore about 5 years ago, but they keep getting shunted out of every place they stayed, as they just can't afford any kind of rent. They can't afford the two hundred rupees per month for light, so they pay only a hundred. In the five years they’ve been in Bangalore, they’ve shifted base almost seven times, and that impacts their entire approach to life. They don’t want to invest in anything, as the need for a place they can settle for a length of time seems to undermine everything else. 

To cater to this need, the IEC has been built as a mobile model, placed in a cart, so if they move, the center moves with them. Innovation for sure.

In addition to the lights, Selco Foundations Urban Labs is working on livelihood programs for the Dholak guys, and has organized for sale of the Dholaks, as Dholaks and also as lamp shades, plus laptop and mobile covers in the Sunday Soul Santhe at Bangalore. We also have an outlet of their products in office.

The entire solar installation in a cart;
Solar panels on it and charging station within

Wahida, who offered us tea in her shack
Gave us real heavy philosophy and what's more,
in poetic form too !!

Contrast in a pic

               

Firdouz showing us the Dholaks

They love their pictures.....and aren't they pretty !!

Mauseen wanted this one, so it's up here for her

Another group of four..happy to pose

They were a very interesting community, and I think we spent more than two hours just chatting up with them. Aadam, their clear leader says, humara zindagi sirf dholak hai, aur kuch nahi karna chahthe. Kwaish nahi hai, tho khwabh kahaan ka, khwabh nahi tho umang kahan se. ( Our lives are only about the dholaks, we want to do nothing else. There is no desire, so why dream, and when there is no dream, where is there hope). His language, his style, to me it looked straight out of Umrao Jaan. And the women are so aware and pretty. But, they were like, hum kho kuch nahi aatha hai, ek aadmi kamatha hai aur dus log kathe hain, aise hi jiyenge aur aise hi marengi. ( we don't know how to do anything, one person earns and ten of us eat, we will live like this, and die like this). Very controlled and very conservative. And with such a closed attitude as they have, it looked like they have a long way to go. Each to their own I guess.

Field co-ordinator Yuva Kumar in the background
Eunice and Nakul in some kind of Japanese bow;
but truly, take a bow guys !!

Hyderabad - Heritage Walk

Charminar, the iconic monument of Hyderabad

The Heritage walks in Hyderabad all start from the historical and beautiful Charminar; one to Chowmohalla Palace, one to Badshahi Asurkhana and a third to the Purani Haveli. I was happy to see that we had caught walk 3 which goes from Charminar to Purani Haveli, as I hadn’t been to Purani Haveli before. And the biggest surprise was to find that Purani Haveli is still occupied by the Nizams descendants and we’re allowed to view it only from a good distance.

Purani Haveli from as close as we're allowed to get

This kind of brought out how history since the Nizams is so recent that the VIII Nizam, Mukarram Jha, is still alive, and though he doesn’t have an official title, the community still regards him as the VIII Nizam. Our guide Raziya, herself felt so and you could almost hear the awe in her voice.

I know a lot of Hyderabadis are kind of confused between the Qutub Shahis, Asaf Jahs and the Nizams, so let’s do a little clearing out on that. 

The Qutub Shahi dynasty, a Persian dynasty with Turkish origins, conquered Golconda in the early 1500s by defeating the Bahamanis, and ruled the Golconda Sultanete for close to 180 years, through eight rulers of the Qutub Shahi Dynasty. It was only in 1687 that the Mughals took control over Golconda, when Aurangazeb captured the fort ( through deceit, as it was reputed to be an impregnable fort) and it came under Mughal rule.

Aurangzeb then had the Asaf Jahs from Delhi administer the Golconda region and appointed them as Nizams, Nizam–ul-Mulk which is 'Administrator of the Realm'. And that's how the Asaf Jhas came to be known as the Nizams. The first Nizam was totally loyal to Aurangzeb, and is even buried next to Aurangzeb near Delhi. ( A correction; Aurangzeb is buried at Aurangabad, not Delhi ). But after the death of Aurangzeb, the second Nizam declared the region as an independent princely state, and thus came into existence Hyderabad. It was ruled by the Nizams for two hundred years through seven Nizams, right upto independence.

This explains why a lot of our historical monuments are interspersed between the Qutub Shahis and the Nizams 

The Chowmohalla Palace and the Faluknama Palace which were the later residences of the Nizams have since been restored, and what's more, under the personal guidance of Princess Esra, wife (though divorced and adding the controversial element) of Mukarram Jha, grand son of the Mir Osman Ali Khan the VII and last Official Nizam of Hyderabad. It is said that it is thanks to her that Hyderabad is again in a position to showcase the history of the Nizams. Personally grateful too Princess Esra, love the historical aura of Hyderabad !

Now for the walk itself; it started at the Charminar, where our guide Raziya, told us about the history of the Nizams, as I've tried recounting here, and some bit on how the Charminar includes Persian and Mughal architecture.

First stop was at the Unani Hospital, opposite the imposing Mecca Masjid

Jarokha at the entrance to the Unani Hospital

Mecca Masjid, one of the largest mosques in India

Next stop was at Sardar Mahal, the palace of the second wife of the sixth Nizam. It's named after her, Sardar Begum, but apparently it was built based on British architecture, and she didn't like it, so she never stayed there. It's now converted into a municipal corporation office, but you can't miss the once granduer and beauty of the place, with the walled purdah, fountains, balustrades et al

                                                         Sardar Mahal

On the way was this quaint, pretty and totally neglected tomb. Apparently the tomb of one of the Qutub Shahi chieftains, though why it would be so far from Golconda beats me.

An old and neglected tomb

Next stop was Mir Alam Mandi. It was fascinating as it was abuzz with early morning market activity, and stepping into that imposing gate felt like stepping back into history.

Mir Alam Mandi Kamaan and Gate

A couple of shots inside the mandi, for which I almost lost my group

                                       

                                          

 Next was Naan straight out of the Tandoor, yumm...I ate it plain. The rest of our group still did Naan and Nihaari (paaya, which is a broth of goat hooves) at the original Shadaab, where I was happy with Irani Chai, and that was a suitable and apt ending to a lovely Hyderabadi morning. 

                                   

I strongly recommend the walks to anybody visiting in Hyd, and I'll be happy to accompany :)

A Buddhist Parable

This is a story which again shows how we build our own stories, create our own baggage, and then carry its burden 

It's about two monks who are going from one monastery to another and are walking through a forest. They soon come across a stream that’s flowing strong due to the unseasonal rains at the time. There’s this young woman sitting by the bank, apparently scared of crossing the stream.

She hesitantly asks one of the monks if he could help her across the stream. The monk says, ‘sorry, but as you can I am a monk and I have the wow of chastity, so I cannot help you’. And then he's surprised to hear the other monk say, 'it’s okay, get on my back and I’ll help you cross'.

The second monk carries her across, sets her down on the other bank, and the monks continue their journey in silence. They walk on for over two hours, before they reach the monastery.

After dinner, the first monk seeks out his companion monk and says ‘I can’t stand this anymore, so I have to ask; how could you touch that woman, actually carry her, when you know it’s against our rules.’

The second monk turns to the first one, puts his hand on his shoulder and says ‘you see, I dropped her on the other bank of the stream, but you are still carrying her’

Listening - An Active Process

This is coming out of two recent experiences, both within the week.

One was when I was talking to this friend of mine, I was saying something with total involvement, really in the flow, and I suddenly got interrupted by her talking to a storekeeper on how long he was going to be open. She's back in a few seconds, asking me to continue, but poof!..…the moment was busted. I couldn’t continue. Why? Not because those few seconds in themselves mattered, but because I must have perceived that she wasn't paying me the attention I wanted.

Another instance found me at the other end of a similar situation. Again in the middle of a conversation, pleasant enough…..but suddenly I find myself in the middle of a full blown argument….the conversation had taken on an unpleasant turn without my even being aware. How? Had I really been listening and not been so full of what I wanted to say, I would have known when the shift was happening……

What does it tell us?

That somewhere we’re not doing a good job of listening. Talking is taking precedence over listening. Research suggests that we register only 25 to 50 percent of what we hear. That’s awful isn’t it. We seem to listen to the extent needed to talk back. Saaad :(

Listening is a big fundamental communication skill.  It’s not just listening, it’s also how you listen. It needs to be an active process where the listener is completely there, involved with all their senses.

Sounds kind of obvious, doesn’t it? But if you really observe around you, you’ll find that there’s really not enough listening happening. Let’s ask ourselves first.

How many times haven’t we seen or found ourselves in the situation where we’re talking and we’re getting the hmm..uh uhs…yeahs ….and we know the other person isn’t really listening. How does that feel?

We’re not absolved ourselves either. Do we really listen? Like with full attention to what the other person is saying. Isn’t our mind parallely already working on response? Maybe even on something entirely different?

                         

Active listening means two things: 1) giving the speaker your full undivided attention, and letting them know that you are listening, either by way of non verbal communication and or by actually asking the occasional question  2) by also allowing the speaker to think through their thoughts by not interrupting. Yes, it’s a whole process. And unlike some of the other things we’ve spoken about, this is one which is actually way more difficult than it seems. 

When you genuinely care, show it by genuinely listening. Try it and you’ll see a clear shift in the quality of the conversations you have. I’m trying hard to get there........ it needs a constant level of awareness and it's tough, but definitely worth pursuing.