Patwon Ki Haveli

One of the largest havelis in Rajasthan, Patwon ki Haveli is a cluster of five small havelis, and is part of the must see circuit of Jaisalmer. And I guess what's noteworthy is that it's as grand and fancy as a palace, but is still not royalty.

It was built by a wealthy jewellery and brocades dealer, Guman Chand Patwa, and what was started in 1805 took almost 55 years to be build. 

And true to every building in Jaisalmer, it looks like it were dipped in gold ( every building in Jaisalmer is this shade of gold) . It's the natural colour of the stone there, and it's from there that it gets it's sobriquet  'The Golden City'

The architecture is really detailed and intricate .....with lots of wall paintings, mirrored rooms, beautiful jharokhas, archways and gateways. 

Look at just how intricate that ceiling is. It's a pooja place inside the haveli. A Jain mandir.

Redefines a barsaathi :)

    

The inside...this was a games room with all kinds of board games laid out, including a brocade pachees set.     

    

Dining area

This was a full on cliched picture...it was just so much jarokha that we had to do it :)

That's the city from the terrace of the haveli...just to show how every building is the same golden yellow

Well, when asked to pose in the middle of a conversation :)

The women looked so much more colourful and attractive than the trinkets they were selling

Footpath shopping for shades, like dark shades, as we were headed into the desert

And then we went onto Sam Point which is the entry into Thar desert

Kuldhara - The Haunted Village

Back to Rajasthan

When we were planning our drive to Jaisalmer, the person who was helping us said "there's a haunted village on the way, a ghost town, where no local will ever go in the night....would you like to visit?" 

Fully intrigued, we of course said yes.

And then Bubu uncle says, 'think again, with all those spirits around and stuff, do you really want to go' To me Bubu uncle meant rational, intelligent, strong, wise.....so coming from him, I paused to rethink. But Diksha and Dhruva were keen, (and actually so was I, so all 'wise' went out the window), so it got added in and we went.

At around noon we drove into Kuldhara. It was like driving into a movie set. Broken down houses, just rubble, deserted, desolate... desert all around, so deserted takes on an even deeper deserted ....and the eerie feel, well it's there....just knowing all that we knew.......or because it was really there...don't know which, but inspite of the blistering noon sun, we could still feel a chill...a creepiness.

We found this little boy, Suhas, all of eleven, who was willing to tell us the story. 

Story goes that in the powerful era of kings and kingdoms, the village was home to the Paliwal Brahmins. Salim Singh, the Diwan of Jaisalmer, known for his debauchery and unscrupulous ways, set his eyes on the beautiful daughter of the village chief. The Diwan threatened the villagers that if the girl wasn't handed over to him, he would impose huge taxes on them.

Fearing the wrath of the Diwan, one dark night the entire village left....they left behind their homes and everything in them........ they abandoned their own village. No one saw the thousand-odd folks of the village leave, and for generations now, no one knows where the Paliwals have resettled. All that is known is they cursed the town when they left, that no one would ever be able to live in Kuldhara again. And those that wouldn't or couldn't go are said to continue to haunt the space.

There are stories of houses in which apparitions have been seen, people have sensed the presence of others, and weird noises have been heard through the night.

Apparently the Paranormal Society of India has done several experiments there and found unexplainable happenings......cameras and generators caught fire for no reason, lights coming on without activation, audio meters going haywire.....and such others. I watched a news channel clip later, and even watching sitting in the safety and comfort of home gave me goosebumps.

The site is now with the Archeological Survey of India, and some of the houses have been restored to give a feel of how the village might have once been.

Even as we were there, there was a movie crew that was setting up, and Suhas said Ajay Devgan was coming for the shoot the next day. He casually reels of names of stars he's met :)

Dhruva trying to give us a scare from one of the houses that's been restored.

Diksha ofcourse had to find a puppy even in the deserted and abandoned Kuldhara

The moment we went in here, Diksha and Dhruva figured this was the house in which a Rajasthan tourism advertisement was shot

I got back and googled....here's the ad itself. Will give you a better feel of Kuldhara than all the writing I can do :)

                                

Dosa Bandi

This was in dear old Bangalore. (A break from the Rajasthan travels).

I think I had one of my best dosas at this 'bandi' this morning.

It's a proper family run enterprise. Kiran (standing by the bandi) serves, the mother makes the dosas, the father washes the plates, and between them they have it all covered. Swaroop (busily eating away to the right) is a regular, and it was interesting to hear him say, 'the mother is the hero'. She was in charge of core operations see....and total no nonsense kinds, not even time for a smile.

Kiran on the other hand  was only too happy to talk. The moment he saw me take a picture, he was saying something about street food in America and in China. They have had the bandi there for ten years, and he's apparently like the proverbial 'barber'...knows anything about anything in the area. And he had such a ready smile, that had I not had an appointment to catch, I would have loved to have stayed and done a longer chat.

The mother has three tava's parallely going and that covers  the menu...plain dosa, onion dosa and egg dosa. And it was truly yummm.

Within the ten to fifteen minutes we were there, we must have seen atleast twenty people come eat. They are there for three hours, seven until ten each morning, and it seemed continuous brisk business.

It sure started my day great...in fact with a bandi like this around the house, a great breakfast done at twenty rupees, breakfast at home would become exception :)

Umaid Bhawan - Jodhpur

Umaid Bhawan is said to be the second largest private residence in the world, next only to Buckingham Palace. 

Constructed in 1929, by Maharaja Umaid Singh, the grandfather of the current Maharaja, Gaj Singh II, the palace has 347 rooms, and served as residence to the erstwhile royal family of Jodhpur. Actually still does, the current Maharaja still lives there. 

The palace was built right from 1929 to 1943, and was planned on lavish scale, essentially to provide employment to the people of Jodhpur during the time of famine.

In 1971 Maharaja Gaj Singh converted a part of the palace into a hotel, which is currently run by the Taj Group of Hotels.

The Palace thus has three parts: the residence of the royal family, a luxury Taj Palace Hotel, and a Museum focusing on the 20th century history of the Jodhpur Royal Family.

The palace also boasts an amazing private vintage car collection. Needless to say, the picture is courtesy Google, but then we did see the Maharaja at the Sufi festival. He is a little older and grayer now I guess.....but this picture could be fairly recent too...polo is still a much played sport in Jodhpur, and the cars, atleast most of them look like they are ready to be driven out. We could see the love and respect that the people of Jodhpur still feel for him.

He still runs the Umaid Bhawan and Mehrangarh Fort trusts, and it's his entrepreneurship ( like the hotel and the Sufi festival) that has enabled both these epic monuments be maintained as they are. It's said that Mehrangarh is one of the best maintained forts in the country.

A couple more pictures (also courtesy Google)

Now for the story;

Gaj Singhs's father Hanuwant Singh, was Maharaja during the period when India gained independence. He was a keen horseman, an ardent polo player, an expert pilot, and an amateur magician. Now, how impressive is that. He was married, and became Maharaja in his early twenties.

During one of his polo matches he meets the beautiful Zubeidaa, and gets completely besotted with her. 

There is then a passionate romance, which the royal family is in disapproval off. And the disapproval was grim and severe, not just because he is already married, but more because Zubeidaa was wrong in more ways than one. She had been already married, was divorced with a child, and the final blow...she was a muslim. Yet the headstrong Hanuwant Singh has his way, he marries her. 

And listen to this....the pressure from the family was so bad, that they had to leave Umaid Bhawan. And where do they go......they move into Mehrangarh Fort 

In 1952, Hanuwant Singh contested the Lok Sabha elections, and won with a landslide victory (loyalties to royalty runs deep) And he is said to have flown Zubeidaa, in his plane, over the Marwar desert to celebrate the victory. (He had inherited the Jodhpur Royal family's passion for flying, and was also known to be a reckless flyer ) While no one knows exact details of how, there was a crash, and both he and Zubeidaa were killed in the plane crash. 

The story was in fact made into a movie by Shyam Benegal, a movie by the same name, Zubeidaa. A beautiful movie with lovely music too.

And while the movie ends with the crash, in reality, Zubeidaa had a second son by the Maharaja, under an year old when she died.

And on this trip, I even heard how the moment the news of the plane crash reached the palace, the Rajmata (the first wife) had her aide rush to Mehrangarh to pick up the baby, as she knew the family would immediately have the child killed. The boy was then brought up by the first wife, the Rajmata of Jodhpur, along with her own son (the current maharaja)

And what's most fascinating is that the movie is written by scriptwriter Khalid Mohamed, who is Zubeidaa's son by her first marriage........who she left behind with her mother, when she goes off with the Maharaja.  The movie in fact starts with him making an effort to find out more about the mother he never knew.

I remember back then, watching the movie multiple times, not even knowing it was based off a true story. Who needs fiction, when we have true stories like this, huh?

Sufi Festival - Jodhpur

The Sufi Festival in Jodhpur was the nucleus around which our trip started to take shape.

A few months ago, at a chance meeting in Hyd, what came together was Harshitha saying, 'we're now in Jodhpur, why don't you make a visit', and my long standing desire to see Jodhpur and the desert. But then the thoughts had happened before, even when she was stationed at Jaipur, but no trip had materialized.

This time round what got added is her saying, "there's a sufi festival somewhere in Feb see if you can make it then, it's in the Mehrangarh fort and it will be lovely"

And so by chance, I had dates, and that's all it took. That little bit of concreteness to build on. 

And slowly we added in other elements, Jaisalmer, Udaipur (dropped later), Ajmer, and by end Jan, we had a nicely packed in itinerary, and from the original two days of the Sufi festival out of a five day trip, we had settled for one evening of Sufi. 

Once there, we realized the festival tickets cost a bomb, (something like 11 k a couple), and we were like 'oh oh, not happening '. Then we so fully lucked out. Harshitha actually got us passes. Well, guess it's not for nothing that it's said "where there's a desire, there's......", but more significantly....."Huge thanks Harshitha!"

Now to the festival itself.

Sufism goes beyond religion. It’s said to be a direct connect with the creator in the quest for personal enlightenment and self realization, transcending churches, temples, mosques and their rituals. It finds expression in mystical poetry, music and dance inspired by the works of Sufi poets, like Rumi, Hafiz,  Amir Khusrow and Khwaja Ghulam Farid.

In that one evening, I experienced Sufism like never before. And while we attended three performances, the one that touched me the deepest was a performance by a Baul artist  (derived from vatul in Sanskrit, literally “mad”, drunk on divine aspiration) 

Baul music is folk song, carrying influences of hindu bhakti movements as well as the shuphi, a form of Sufi music. Bauls are mystic minstrels from Bengal, with a large influence on  Bengali culture, and particularly the compositions of Rabindranath Tagore.  They do not identify with any organized religion, caste system, deities, temples or sacred places and are admired for this freedom from convention, as well as their music and poetry which is devoted to achieving spiritual liberation.

The Baul singer at the festival was Parvathy Baul, and we thought  she was phenomenal. It was a solo performance, with narration of poetry and singing, accompanied by two small instruments, the single string ektara and a small drum called the dubki, in either hand And while the singing is in Bengali, she first translates each poem into English. The performance is in an almost trance state.... and I thought she was enchanting.

                    

A few pictures from the evening.

Dhruva and Diksha at the entrance, background is the stage. And the food place was kingfisher sponsored I think, so there was beer to go with the music.

This was Prem Joshua and Band. Prem Joshua, upon his very first visit to India in 1977, felt an immediate and profound connection, and deeply inspired, the young German musician began infusing familiar forms of western music with the exotic flavors of India. Already an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, he mastered the sitar and he now divides times between India and Europe.  

He did a lot of traditional mantras and slokas in zippy tunes, accompanied by the electric guitar and sitar.... as said by someone, it's as entertaining as it is enlightening.

This was epi from Mongolia, alongwith a Manganiyar community troupe. His versatility and range of voice and how they blended it to fit in with Marwar folk was lovely.

This was close to midnight as we left the fort, heady with the music, the crowd, the ambiance (and maybe a little bit the beer too :)

I'm realizing that these festivals are really enriching experiences, and so much fun too.....and definitely worthwhile planning trips around. Hoping to make it a regular part of life :)

Jodhpur - Jaisalmer - Jaipur

Would have been more appropriate to say 'Jodhpur - Jaisalmer - Ajmer' (as Jaipur was just the flight out bit) but then I couldn't help the flow of the J's 

Mehrangarh Fort in all it's evening splendour, for the Sufi Festival

There's a rhythm to Rajasthan that kind of envelopes and mesmerizes. It's such an amazing blend of contrasts, that it takes your breath away with a new experience at each turn. 

Let me start at the beginning....right from the window on the flight from Delhi to Jodhpur. The plane was a bombardier, so it flew really low.....giving us spectacular views of the Aravalli ranges that run across north western India.  Ranges and ranges of mountains that looked like crumpled paper from above, and then you see them in all their magnificence as you drive from Jodhpur to Jaipur.

You think Rajasthan, and you're thinking war and valor, and forts and swords.....and then you get there and see color and music and folklore and dance......all larger than life. There's so much that the senses can take in... it's going to take days for the mind to process ( more glad for the blog for enabling process :)

It's like the cities of Rajasthan have sprung up around their forts and citadels, each city boasting it's own unique one. Even the topography...it has the mountains, the plains, the lakes and then there is of course the Thar desert.

And you can't but gape at the grace and beauty of the local attire, be it the pretty pretty coloured ghunghats and lehangas the women wear, or the grand looking pagdi's of the men. And it is so full of stories and folklore that it keeps you intrigued and fascinated. And oh yes, I haven't seen as much of, or as many shades of Bougainvillea ever before. Simply stunning.

Our base was Jodhpur, so let me start there. The Jodhpur skyline is dominated by the imposing Mehrangarh Fort, and the stately Umaid Bhavan which are visible from any part of the city. And the city itself is one of the cleanest, nicest and prettiest cities I've seen. And the people too...so polite and soft spoken, even the way they do their namaste seems more pronounced.

The Mehrangarh fort is simply stupendous in size, apparently one of the largest forts in India...and so intricate in design. You can see the canon ball marks on the fort,  just a dent in the six meter thick fortifications. It was built in 1460 by Rao Jodha, and is said to have been invincible. There is also the visible reminders of 'sati' with imprints of the hands of the women. (we can see cenotaphs across Rajasthan in honor of those who gave their lives through 'sati'...also brought back memories of 'Padmini' another favorite Amar Chitra Katha)

I read this about the fort, and while I could feel it...I can't say it more beautifully

'Mehrangarh Fort stands a hundred feet in splendor on a perpendicular cliff, four hundred feet above the sky line of Jodhpur. Burnished red sand stone, imposing, invincible and yet with a strange haunting beauty that beckons . Much has been written about the Citadel of the Sun, for truly, it is one of the most impressive in all Rajasthan. So colossal are its proportions that Rudyard Kipling called it “the work of giants”. 

Rest in pictures:

The size just overwhelms as you enter

Dhruva getting a picture of the city, which has a distinct blue side to it, apparently brahmin houses were painted blue so they were left alone during war. 

The blue houses are more clearly visible here

We waited and watched him tie his twelve meters of pagdi to perfection.....and I thought it was way more complicated than the six meters of saree. And the women, they aren't in costume, that's how they always are...... graceful, bejewelled and fully covered.

This is picture courtesy Google, just to give a better idea of size, it's just so awe inspiring

Just standing there and thinking of those canons in action gave goosebumps

A quaint old lady who had the tastiest water in her earthen pots..helped us spend an extra hour there for sure

I thought I could do Jodhpur at one go, but I just realized I hadn't written about the Sufi Festival, nor about Umaid Bhavan...In fact Umaid Bhavan will need a whole separate post.....as it has a fascinating story to boot ;)

How Travel Also Teaches

That 'travel teaches' is a given.....the newness of a place, of a culture, of food, of people.....generally a lot of fun, and needless to say, a huge expanding of horizons. 

And then there's also the other side to it. A trip....the thinking, the deciding, the planning, the arranging, the bookings......

                         

And while all that can also be engaging and fun....it can also drive you nuts. Yep, no points for guessing....I had it pretty tough this morning.

I was doing a web checkin......and what started as a simple, straightforward process, went as all over the place as it could. What I had set aside ten minutes for, took a full three hours.

First off, I realize that if you want window seats, you need to pay for them....well, I wanted window, so paid. Then found the payment had gone, but no seats. And what's worse the registered email was from makemytrip, so my messages were going there, and this inspite of my changing email.

Then the onerous task of getting through to customer service ...the IVR....and once there, I realized I had six different PNRs, and what's more...on three different airlines ( no direct flights :)

That sorted, on the next airline I'm stuck because it's says 'booking not recognized', any permutation combination I tried...not recognized. Back to IVR, and madam at the other end says, 'use a different browser'. I was by then on the task for over an hour...and I was in no mood to take being palmed off with a casual 'use a different browser'. Ten minutes more to get the supervisor online, and then he figures it...middle name and last name have no space in between. I needed to have done Dhruva PrasadDevara. Who'd have thought.

And trust me, I had more issues, but will stop with this....anyways by this time nerves were stretched thin enough. And the reason I write all of this happens here.....to share what worked. 

Mindfulness .....actually mindfulness exercises.

Step out of that space...like physically, sit elsewhere.....close your eyes.....listen to the sounds around.....feel the air on your body...... feel your toes..... feel the movements within the body...feel your breath....go on for two minutes (like actually two minutes). It works like magic...... the energy shifts.

That bit of awareness, that bit of effort, and you can change a lot of things around you (and within you)

I was very soon fully back in action ....grounded, present and in joyful anticipation :)

Musings - Add in Nostalgia

A day that started with some nostalgia.....

The earth, the sea and the sky, all in that one forever moment

Just as with 'Anticipation' .............So with 'Nostalgia'.

To be fully centered in the present, and yet to allow into it's folds 'Nostalgia'.... to allow oneself to be taken over by the waves of beauty and emotion from the past, is yet a fully present experience.

And when you have it alongside 'Anticipation', you realize your mind has just expanded beyond time....to encompass the more. And in there, can be experienced life with a heightened sense of awareness......almost like vibrating at a different frequency.

Guess it could be called 'to be in love with life'

What better day to say this than on Valentines :)

Musings : Anticipation...Being In The Now

I started to write about 'Anticipation'........ how wonderful 'Anticipation' is, and how it has within it excitement, possibilities, expectations, hope, pleasure.....all of that right.(talking positive anticipation here )

And then as the thoughts started to sort themselves out in the mind... in came it's antithesis, (also something I dearly subscribe to).....'live in the moment' 'it's all about the present' 

Do they contradict? Seemingly So.......   But they really don't. 

When you're flush with anticipation, you are yet completely present. Anticipation of the future...but fully contained in the joy of the 'Now'. Thought about the future.......yet a function of the present. Nicely paradoxical, huh.

Smartening up

From Seth

When you seek the mass market, there are two paths available:

You can dumb down your message and your expectations, and meet your audience where they stand. You can coarsen your lyrics, offer simpler solutions, ask for less effort, demand less work, promise bigger results...

Or you can smarten it up, and lead despite your goal of mass, not chase it.

The very fact that "dumb down" is an expression and "smarten up" isn't should give any optimist pause.

Culture is a gravitational force, and it resists your efforts to make things work better.

So what? Persist.

Musings

When Worried, Stop Worrying.......Think

"Worry gives a small thing a big shadow."—Swedish Proverb.

Issues will come up....the ups and downs will happen, after all life's dynamic.

But worry? 

That's of our own making. We're hard wired to worry. But look at it, rather than help resolve, worry typically comes accompanied......... accompanied by anxiety, fear, stress, tension, headaches, irritability ........and such others which can only drag us down further, and take away from our ability to think.

Once in a space of worry, our thinking gets clouded, and we just get good at adding 'What If's' and we add so many to a likely already 'uncontrollable situation' , and that's what creates that big shadow.

Worry is more likely to interfere with the problem solving than help.

Sure, worry has a space. Can we use it to look at the issue, face it head on, strip it threadbare and know what....you'll clearly see how much you can do and how much is in the non controllable zone. In how much you can do, find what you can in the present, and that's it, that's about all you can do. And know that that is the best you can do.  And your best is always good enough.

Try it...stop worrying and think...it will give you so much surplus energy to do so many nicer things in life, to even just be nicer.

You'll see more positivity enter life, for yourself and by default, those around too.  

The loveliest of bouquets

The little things that bring on the smile.

Just now, I'm sitting engrossed with my book, and the door bell rings. I go open, only to find no one there....... but as I was closing the door I spot this cute little bunch of flowers sitting on the doormat.

I had no idea who, but it didn't take much to guess it was my little 'kiki aunty kids' ...... just that there were now so many groups, I was wondering who I could thank for the beautiful gesture.

Then I figured that tit-for-tat doesn't necessarily have to be negative; I wrote out a little thank you note and left it on the mat with a five star for paper weight. And sure enough, I soon have these three kids ring the doorbell, all saying a five star munching thanks. 

The thanks seemed to continue as I said a huggy thanks again, and it was then that they touched a core....to my question of, what made them do something so beautiful, they said 'because you are so kind aunty'. The pure and undiluted guilelessness of children....the smile now brought in a tear :)

It's Not Always About Agreeing

Excerpts from an HBR article with an unusual, and well articulated perspective, by Liane Davey

If Your Team Agrees on Everything, Working Together Is Pointless

                                                            

Collaboration is crumpling under the weight of our expectations. What should be a messy back-and-forth process far too often falls victim to our desire to keep things harmonious and efficient. Collaboration’s promise of greater innovation and better risk mitigation can go unfulfilled because of cultural norms that say everyone should be in agreement, be supportive, and smile all the time. 

You’ve probably been taught to see collaboration and conflict as opposites.  As a team, you’re “all in the same boat.” To be a good team player, you must “row in the same direction.” These idealized versions of teamwork and collaboration are making many teams impotent.

There’s no point in collaboration without tension, disagreement, or conflict. What we need is collaboration where tension, disagreement, and conflict improve the value of the ideas, expose the risks inherent in the plan, and lead to enhanced trust among the participants.

It’s time to change your mindset about conflict. Let go of the idea that all conflict is destructive, and embrace the idea that productive conflict creates value. Building on one another’s ideas only gets you incremental thinking. If you avoid disagreeing, you leave faulty assumptions unexposed. As Walter Lippmann said, “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.” 

Unfortunately, our distaste for conflict is so entrenched that encouraging even modest disagreement takes significant effort. I find that three specific techniques help people embrace productive conflict.

First, discuss the different roles in the team and highlight what each role brings to the conversation. Highlight how the roles are there to drive different agendas. 

As you work through each role in the team and their different motives, you’ll see the light bulbs going on as people realize, “You mean I’m supposed to fight with that person!” Yes! “And when he’s disagreeing with me, it’s not because he’s a jerk or trying to annoy me?” Right! If the team has the right composition, each member will be fighting for something unique. They are doing their jobs (and being good team players) by advocating in different directions, not by acquiescing. By taking the time to normalize the tensions that collaborators already feel, you liberate them to disagree, push, pull, and fight hard for the best answer.

Second, use a personality or style assessment tool to highlight differences in what people are paying attention to. In addition to differences stemming from their roles, team members will have different perspectives on an issue based on their personalities.

A third approach to normalizing and encouraging productive conflict is to set ground rules around dissension. Ask your team to define the behaviors that contribute to productive conflict (i.e., conflict that improves decision making while contributing to increased trust) and those that detract from it. 

One case that would benefit from clearer expectations is the use of the devil’s advocate role. The true role of the devil’s advocate (originally, the person appointed by the Pope to counter evidence of sainthood in the Roman Catholic beatification process) is to question the veracity of evidence and to propose alternate explanations for what has happened.  A true devil’s advocate does a great service.

Giving people permission to challenge, disagree, and argue isn’t enough. After all, giving someone permission to do something they don’t want to do is no guarantee that they’ll do it. If you want to create productive conflict on your team and use it to generate better ideas, you need to move beyond permission to making productive conflict an obligation.

Claim Your Space.......

This was a little experience at the fuel station.

I'd done with getting fuel filled, and then moved onto the air pressure checking space. There was already a little queue, and I pulled in behind.

In a couple of minutes I see this guy on an Enfield go past me, and stop ahead in the queue.

I'm at first just wondering how he could do that, then I'm trying to catch his eye and of course, he is looking everywhere except at me. I can feel my annoyance grow.

And then I'm asking myself, 'if you're annoyed, why you just sitting here, why you not doing anything about it... why this quiet submission'. All that walk the talk stuff went through my head, so I get off and very politely I tell him. And this guy has the gall to say, 'no, I'm two wheeler, so I can do it'. I try to reason with him, but to no avail. 

And then he's like, let's ask the air pressure attendant. By then I was mad..so I'm like..'we're two mature adults, why can't we decide' ( what expectations... I was obviously the less mature one there )

Anyways, the issue got resolved by the management quietly stepping in, just seeing this altercation happen, and they set things right.

So one lesson is 'claim your space', just do it politely. Then the next thing which happened, was even more interesting.

We made peace.

All it took was a smile.... no smugness and no I-told-you-so looks....just an honest and open smile......and he picked that up. He gave me a sheepish smile...nevertheless an honest smile.

So the larger take away........ even with difficult situations, keep the ego out and it's possible to end well. 

Shakespeare’s Characters Show Us How Personal Growth Should Happen

An interesting write up from the Harvard Business Review, by Declan Fitzsimons

Norman Mailer once wrote that there is a cruel but just law of life that says we must change or pay an increasing cost for remaining the same.

As a leadership scholar teaching in a business school, I encounter leaders daily for whom this “law” is a very real and disquieting one. They know what will happen if they don’t make the changes to their businesses, but they are not so sure what they should do to support those changes. Is it about learning how to run more effective team meetings? Or how to be better listeners? Or adopting a different leadership style to bring about a shift in organizational culture?

While there is no formulaic answer to these questions, there are some fundamentals without which no amount of skills development is ever going to work. One source of insight into what these fundamentals might look like is the work of an author whose work has never been out of print for over 400 years: William Shakespeare.

In the opening chapter of his book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom, who has taught Shakespeare at Yale for 30 years, suggests that before Shakespeare, characters in plays would unfold but not necessarily develop.

If a character merely unfolds, we intuit correctly that we already know all there is to know about them when they first appear onstage. Their authors have robbed them of the one quality that would make them interesting: the capacity for self-enquiry that might reveal something unexpected not only to us but also to themselves. They teach us little because they cannot surprise us, essentially because they cannot surprise themselves. This is the real-world equivalent of the manager who comes out of a feedback session and thinks, “Nothing new – the same feedback as I have heard before,” and then says to themselves, “I guess I am what I am!” or “I have my way of doing things, and some people like it and some people don’t.”

Shakespeare does not let us off the hook so easily. He shows us that we are not simply who we say we are, but instead are made up of many conflicting and unknown parts. As Bloom puts it, Shakespeare’s characters develop because they have the ability to overhear themselves talk, either to themselves or to others, and are thus able to reconceive themselves. By endowing his characters with complex inner worlds, Shakespeare treats us, 400 years before Freud, to virtuoso displays of what to the modern ear sounds very much like self-discovery. There is not one Hamlet but many. After learning of his father’s murder, he discovers in soliloquies of stunning intensity that he cannot bear to remain as he is. So tortured is he by his inner conflicts that he considers, in perhaps the most famous soliloquy in all literature, the pros and cons of suicide (“to be or not to be”).

We are mesmerized — not simply through the beauty of the language, but because we realize that he is hearing these things for the first time. And no matter how many times we see the play, we never tire of it, because it is at such moments that Hamlet, while in real danger of unraveling, is at the same time exquisitely vulnerable and thus truly human.

Shakespeare shows us through Hamlet and other characters not only the sine qua non of human development — that in order to change ourselves we must first discover ourselves — but also what that development sounds like, looks like, and feels like. He shows us that it is the moment when Hamlet is so close to falling apart that he is able to fall together. 

For us, far away from the dramatic intensity of fictional characters, the point is not that we can change only if we contemplate killing ourselves or turn our backs on our friends; change is rather about moving toward, rather than away from, the anxieties that powerful external challenges provoke in our internal worlds. Hamlet was able to face his own inertia and cowardice; Hal was able to confront and thus transcend his dissolute lifestyle and embrace a new identity fit for a king. But both were possible only after the characters became willing to discover what lay within.

Shakespeare teaches us moderns that in the face of an uncertain world, self-awareness — that much-vaunted leadership quality — is only worthy of the name when it is revelatory. And it can only be revelatory when we are willing to concede that we know ourselves only partially.

Development, then, is less about changing ourselves by learning new skills than about discovering ourselves by giving something up — including some of our most cherished notions of the person we think we are — in order to discover the person we could become.