Coco

Lovely.

It's true that some of life's most beautiful things just fall out of the sky and land right in your lap...... Coco was one such.

A friend called and said "I'm in your part of town, want to catch Coco?". Thanks to no paper and no TV I hadn't even heard of Coco. Within the minute I received the trailer link on my phone. I said Yes, and within a couple of hours found myself in the theater, blissfully immersed in Coco land.

Coco is one of Pixar's most engaging films, I don't know how it's possible that they can outdo their own best but they've definitely done it yet again.

As story it's a simple enough theme of this little boy, Miguel, who has music in his blood, is in a family that is completely against music as the great great grandfather abandoned the family to follow his dream of music. The Rivera family lives in Santa Cecilia....and here's the mind blowing element. Miguel, the little boy through some complex mechanism lands in afterlife, searching for Ernesto de la Cruz, his great great grandfather, 

While Miguel is the hero, the movie is named after Coco, the great grandmother, and hinges on her feelings and memories of her father, a beautifully brought out sentiment, through the twists and turns that the story goes through.

The Mexican culture and way of life is so beautifully brought out. It was so full of marigolds and grandmothers and traditions, that I found I connected at the deeper level. 

The conceptualization of the afterlife was fascinating.  At it's core it's dealing with desire, fear and death. The emotions are raw and powerful. It all starts with the Dia de los muertos, the day of the dead, and it does raise some very fundamental questions in your mind. I can't say I didn't think of my grand mother sitting there.

I doubt there would be a dry eye when the emotional angle reached a peak...mine definitely weren't. 

Coco is beautiful.... hilarious, intellectually engaging, emotionally powerful, and an absolute visual treat, the animation is simply stunning....in Mexico and in the afterlife.........I'd go watch again

Here's a trailer peek:

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking has had me piqued for a while now.

This morning, when in the podcast, I heard the speaker say, "clear thinking is such a rare thing, most people can't do it" is when I figured it's worth a deep dive.

It’s been said that systems thinking is one of the key management competencies for the 21st century.

While this sounds very 'system' oriented.....logical and reason based, it's way more broadly encompassing than that. It seems to almost warrant paradigm shifts. The beautiful and uplifting part of it is that paradigm shifts are very possible....

It's about wanting to, and being willing to get there.

'Systems thinking encompasses a spectrum of thinking strategies that look at problem solving and encourage questioning. While 'habit' is defined as a usual way of doing things, the habits of a Systems Thinker do not suggest that systems thinkers are limited by routine ways of thinking.

Rather, the 'Habits' encourage flexible thinking and appreciation of new, emerging insights and multiple perspectives.

A synopsis from 'How to Make Difficult Problems Easier to Solve with Systems Thinking' by Dr.Jamie Schwandt 

"If you had to think of the problem that underlies all other problems, what would you say it is? 

It is the way we think.

Einstein - “Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems created with our current pattern of thought.”

There are four simple rules of Systems Thinking, DSRP, which represents four cognitive functions that we must have to form new ideas:

• Distinctions

• Systems

• Relationships

• Perspectives

Distinctions

Distinction serves as a boundary that defines an idea or a thing.  They identify what a thing or even a problem IS and what it IS NOT.

Systems

“A change in the way an idea is organized leads to a change in the meaning of the idea.” – Derek Cabrera

Every idea or thing is a system containing parts. Any idea or thing can be split into parts . Any idea or thing can be lumped into a whole.

A person who can do both (split and lump) is called a “Slumper”.

Slumper’s are people who have the ability to both construct or deconstruct ideas to further our understanding.

Relationships

We cannot understand much about a thing or idea without understanding the relationship between or among the ideas or systems.

All types of relationships require that we consider two underlying elements: action and reaction.

Perspectives

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” 

Sometimes perspectives are so basic and so unconscious to us, we are unaware of them but they are always aware of us.

Being aware of the perspectives we take and do not take is paramount to deeply understanding ourselves and the world around us.

Different perspectives result from changing the Point, the View, or Both.

Systems Thinking, gives you the approach or methodology and also provides techniques. For instance the first technique is called a Cognitive Jig, which uses analogies and metaphors. This is a powerful technique, one in which Derek informs us,

“Will increase our speed of thought.”

We begin at the unconscious incompetence stage (we don’t know what we don’t know).

If we are lucky, someone wakes us up and causes us to search for something more. We then move into the conscious incompetence stage, where we realize we have something we need to learn.

Once we develop some competence, we then move into the unconscious competence stage. Here we practice a skill without being fully aware of the skill. There is cognition but not metacognition (thinking about thinking or cognition about cognition).

When we finally move into the conscious-competence stage, we become aware of what we are doing so that we can adapt to where we need to be. 

Successfully progressing along the continuum means we have an increase in our metacognitive awareness, which is extremely important as everything we experience is an ever-changing mental model.

The whole article, for those interested: 'How to Make Difficult Problems Easier to Solve with Systems Thinking' by Dr.Jamie Schwandt.

Musings - Weirdness Quotient

IQ ( Intelligence quotient) and EQ (Emotional quotient), we're all pretty familiar with, but a scale for 'weirdness' brought on the smile.

An article on a few CEOs favourite hiring questions - and Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos ( a company that's been exemplary on customer satisfaction, one we considered role model while designing strategy at Google) has for favorite  question "On a scale of one to 10, how weird are you?"

Why this triggered thought and why it brought a smile.....

I use the word 'weird' quite a bit..... and going by NLP, I had this little lurking worry that would perk up each time I used it :)

Reading this, took me on a sort of introspective tour of my own 'weirdness quotient'........... and surprise surprise........I realized that the 'weird' element in life (mine for sure) rightly deserves credit for a lot of the absolute 'highs' in life.

It's what enables the 'beyond usual' ........ the stepping out of comfort zone, the high risk moves, the hatke little stuff, the big and bold decisions, the random deep connects, the leaps of faith, the courage to stand up to self........all that enables the difference between 'existing' and 'living'.

And on second thought.....it reveals itself as kind of apparent too. 'Weird' is by definition, what's not normal, not accepted, not proven, not approved.....anything outside the known system.

 And that's when I understood why 'weird' could be seen as premium.

Sunrise (s)

All from home ....

I'd be sitting on my couch,  typically at this time of day doing coffee and writing. For a thinking pause I'd turn left, and there are days the sight would make me put down my laptop, to go capture the moment.

These are some of those moments, winter sunrises from this month alone.. November '17

8th November

14th November

16th November

21st November

Same day, a few minutes later, where Diksha captured a bird in flight too

Well, it's actually one of the reasons on my list of why I love this house :)

An Interview with Premlathaji

The fag end of my visit to Delhi found me in conversation with a fascinating woman, an octogenarian, eighty year old Premlatha.

A woman who lives alone..... still does her own cooking, walks to the electricity office to pay her bills, buys her own vegetables.....all that and more.  Someone whose life experiences show tremendous amount of strength and resilience....a true inspiration. 

Her life is so full of intense and extreme experience, that I requested if I could convert that conversation into an interview.

She's my aunt's neighbor and landlady....actually lives in the house above my aunt's place. When she knew Swaroop and I were visiting she sent down makki methi rotis (made by her). In fact they were so yumm, that's all we had for lunch that day.

And that's also what gave me the opportunity to go up to thank her. Talking to her was like reading a tightly written fiction novel, making the adage 'truth is stranger than fiction' come alive.

Some context:

She is originally from Lahore, and moved to India during the partition. Her family then settled in Jallundhar. And yes, she has experienced partition in all it's brutality and gore. 

And if that's not enough extreme experience for a lifetime, she had another. When she was pregnant with her first child, very young, just a few months into marriage, her husband disappeared. Yes, disappeared......never to be found again.

He worked with the IB (Intelligence Bureau ) and was on a mission in Mizoram, when he and his team of eight just disappeared. No amount of searching gave so much as a clue..... even the body was never found. She even met Indira Gandhi with a plea for additional search efforts.

She said that for years and years when the door bell rang she'd think it was him. And the thought of settling or getting remarried was never an option because they didn't ever know if he was even alive or not.

The conversation was sadly not as long as I would have liked, so we just stayed with the partition experience. I've had to translate, which I'm doing reluctantly as it was so beautiful in her hindi. Anyways, here it is, part in her words and part in translated version:

Me: आंटी जी आप लाहौर के रेहने वाले थे ? ( so, you were from Lahore?)

Premlatha ji: हाँ

Me:  रेवती आंटी ने कहा था की दाल पकते पकते आप लोग को भागना पड़ा ? उस बारे में बताएँगे मुझे थोड़ा सा ( aunty told me you had to leave even as your mother was cooking dal)  

Premlatha ji: में साथ या आठ साल की थी...... माँ खाना बना रही थी .......तब हमारे पास स्टोव नहीं था..... यह कोयला भी नहीं था...... लकड़ी पे दाल पखरहा था... बापूजी दवाई लाने मेडिकल शॉप गये थे ...... छोटा भाय को टाइफाइड होगया था.........उसकेलिये

I must have been around seven or eight years old, my mother was cooking...we didn't have stoves, she was cooking on firewood, I remember the smell of daal on the stove. My father had gone to buy medicines. My brother had typhoid, so he went to buy medicines for him.

There a police man, who knew them well, told him,

"दवाई छोड़ो , जान का देखो ... घर जाओ और फॅमिली को लेखर भागो ....पता नहीं , राइफल्स हम्हारे ही हाथ से आप पर छूट जाये "

(leave the medicines, go back, take your family and run, who knows it may end up that our rifles itself shoot you)

We literally ran, in fact we were told not to take anything.......i remember we ran, then my mother went back to put out the cooking fire. We took only the medicines that my brother needed.

They said even for Rs.2 you'll get killed, remove the bangles you are wearing also.

We didn't want to lock the door from outside, so we had to climb over the wall and escape from the side road....we took a tonga, and went to Miyameen station. We reached the station in the dark. There were no trains, and the station was very crowded.

It was the night of 14th August '1947.  Everybody was waiting at the station for the announcement....we didn't know if Lahore would go to India or Pakistan.

It was early morning by the time the announcement came that Lahore was going to Pakistan.

After a while a train came in. People who got in first came out and said, "don't get into that train, there is only blood flowing in it " (all the bodies had been thrown out on the way).

Next train we got into, and it was so tightly packed that we couldn't even move. My mother was holding my hand and my brothers and she said she could not even see where my father and other brothers were.

There was no place to even shake the thermometer, it fell and broke. And people around said 'that is only better, what will you do even knowing the fever is high'.

We only got a few drops of water each, they said just wet your lips.

We reached Amritsar. Then we had to walk through farms...my mother lost her chappal. We stayed with farmers in their outhouses. We moved like that for one and a half months.

There used to be a lot of noise and a lot of fear.

We finally reached Jallandhar in a goods train, and we managed that because my father worked in the railways, and initially we stayed with relatives.

He went to his office there and found that he had got a posting to Delhi. When we reached Delhi he wasn't even sure he still had the job. When we reached there they were just planning to refill his post.

We were seven children, four brothers and three sisters. I remember my father said, I'll eat only one meal a day, but I will educate all my children. And he did. I completed my graduation here in Delhi. I worked as a teacher till I retired.

( As I wrote this, I realized that I must have been mostly dumbstruck, and except for the occasional reaction I had no questions of relevance. It was all her flow.)

Me: I am struggling for words........ this whole experience,  and the experience with your husband's disappearance....and then living alone now.....I'm lost for even questions....you tell me aunty ji, what life means to you now

Premlatha ji: हम न किसी चीज़ से भी एडजस्ट हो जाते है

बहुत उत्तार चढ़ाव देखा है मैंने ......ग़म भी नहीं खुशी भी नहीं..... दिन पे दिन, आज का दिन ख़तम होगया, और कल एक नया दिन, बस, ऐसे ही चलता है अभी .

(As people we adjust to anything in life.......I've seen many ups and downs, too many.....now, it's neither sorrow, nor joy.....each day comes and it passes, and another day comes....that is my life)

Me: I'm so honoured to have been able to talk to you. I wish I could stay longer and talk, but the call has come from aunty, and need to go. I can't tell you how touched I am for your sharing your experience with me. Namasthe aunty ji.

Premlatha ji: मुझे बहुत अच्छा लगा आप से बात करके....... आप के मम्मी कितने अच्छे है...... आप को मक्की की रोटी अच्छा लगा?

( I liked talking to you too, I really like your mother, she is so nice. Did you like the makki ki roti?)

I was overwhelmed. I was finding it hard to shift from partition to my mom, to makki ki roti, and in just how beautifully she did it, she showed me how she lives day on day.

She even said, methi ki roti tho I know you also make with wheat, and I wanted to give you something different, so I decided on makki (cornflour) instead of wheat.

Her thoughtfulness so touched me. At eighty, living alone, what a tower of strength....and what a woman.....and what an honour it was to just spend even that much time with her. I feel blessed.

When Random gets Fascinating

And more interestingly, when you begin to see how so random, is after all..... not so random

The Layers in an Experience

Experiences are what happen all the time, they're everywhere and anywhere, happen to all of us, all the time.

Being there is of course default, yet, possibly, just the first baby step.

It's the depth of the experience, the immersing into the experience, embracing it's varying facets.... that alters the very fabric of the experience.

It's like the difference between a placid painting and a painting with depth, the difference between good music and music that touches your soul, the difference between an ok photograph and one that captures essence.

When there's a million other things occupying your mind, or even ten more, remember that each of those takes away from the present experience. The mantra is to be so completely there, that there's little else occupying your mind.

As with any skill....  practice makes perfect......so also with experience.

Touch those layers......and it enables the proverbial (very real) 'larger than life' experience.

Up In The Air

Up in the air, at heart a love story, is set in the backdrop of recession, and  the cruel process of  'lay offs'.

Bryan Bingham (George Clooney) fires people for a living. He does the dirty job, for bosses who don't have the courage to do it themselves.

Jason Reitman, the director interviewed over a hundred people who had been laid off to get those sequences right, and in fact many of them in the movie were the people who had been laid off, and only some of them are actors.

You see the intense and varied reactions.........confusion, tears, rage, pleas, and even a suicide. An extreme situation for anybody, especially so people in mid life, who might have spent several years with the company, committed, made it their identification, their way of life, presumed they were permanent, and then this rude shock when the carpet is pulled out from under their feet.

Bryan delivers with care and grace, does what can be called a good job of a difficult (horrible) situation. He is smooth, has his script right, and empathetic enough. He is travelling 52 weeks in the year, living out of hotel suites and airport lounges and on flights....... and he seems to love it. He loves his plus 40 single status and the no strings life he leads.

Two women enter his life, two totally unlike each other...two who come and disturb his carefully built tranquility and through that process enable him to find facets of himself he'd barely touched himself. 

Natalie a B school graduates who joins his firm threatening to disrupt business and his very way of life with a video conference model of sacking and downsizing. And it's then that we and he he realize that beneath is this guy who understands people, understands grief and panic, and the one who you slotted as the hatcher, is the one with the most compassionate heart.

Alex (Vera Farmiga) another business executive with who he crosses regular flight paths, someone who has the same uncomplicated needs as his, and the chemistry works.

They initially seem happy with a casual relationship, but it's one that unwittingly gets more complex, throws up conflicts, some which get resolved, and some left in limbo.

A movie worth watching !

The Revolutionary Power of Diverse Thought

I was wowed ! The depth, the articulation, the emotion, the narrative and the meaningfulness.

This time round I thought I'd try a synopsis, but there's no way I could capture all of that.... so I'd say, best watch :) 

No Chemo She Said....

This is a write up from Rediff, by Mitali Saran.

The writing and the story touched me deep. I'm putting it here as is....with a hat's off to people, especially women who know their mind and use their choices !

"In January this year, my friend Annie began a sentence with: "When you write the cancer column..."

"You won't mind if I do?" I asked.

"Of course not," she said. "Besides, I'll be dead and I won't care."

We were trying to digest a shocking diagnosis. She had a malignant lung tumour and more tumour in her lymph nodes.

It was inoperable. The doctor who broke the news to her ordered her to start chemotherapy immediately.

Annie said, "Let's get out of here." We took her home and poured stiff drinks.

No chemo, she said.

Over the next few days, bad news got worse.

She had virulent small cell lung cancer, the worse of two kinds.

At her stage, most people lived somewhere between six and eighteen months.

Chemotherapy would buy her a little more time, but the cancer was almost guaranteed to come back and kill her.

No chemo, she said.

She was allergic to invasive allopathic medicine run by big pharmaceuticals, and the way it wrested choice and control from the patient.

Her first call, after the diagnosis, was to a naturopathy centre in Bombay which handles health and disease by supporting the body's innate ability to repair and sustain itself with proper nourishment and natural treatments.

If naturopathy couldn't cure her cancer, it would at least provide better quality of life. Chemotherapy would have her in and out of hospital, nauseated and wiped out.

Annie refused to spend her remaining days like that. She chose quality over time.

No chemo, she said.

We met a great deal, singly or in groups around her table -- a place of good food and hearty drink, impregnated with a million laughs and confidences and plans -- and tried to wrap our heads around it all, favouring brutal gallows humour.

If she said, "Wait a minute", I'd say, "We don't know if you have a minute."

If I said "I'll tell you later", she'd say, "Sure, I have nothing but time."

The worst part was not knowing how long she had.

She was very widely and very deeply loved. Some of her thousands of friends were frustrated that she was denying herself -- and us -- more time, and some of us agreed with her choice, but we were all in pieces over the inevitability of her death.

She conceded that it was a real drag, but was indignant with anyone who implied that opting for naturopathy was the same as giving up.

"I'm not not fighting my cancer!" she would yell. "I'm just fighting it with different means. No chemo!"

Annie was an utterly original individual who had packed more friends, travel, love, creativity, intelligence, and good times into her life than most people can even dream of.

Even the death in her chest was a form of life gone mad. There's no good way to abridge a life like that, but she found one -- by not ceding her independence, control, choice, and dignity.

She travelled and saw people. We celebrated her 51st birthday out of town, juggling a new regimen of juices and salads.

We went up to the hills in March, a yearly ritual, and walked 8 km a day.

She saw friends and family in Bombay, in Pondicherry, in Bangalore, in Kerala, and in Kuwait.

Her father passed away in May, and she was a tower of strength for her mother and the rest of her family.

She travelled to Germany, France, and Switzerland over the summer, and met friends. She carried her own suitcases all the way.

It was her swan song trip. She returned tired, rail-thin, happy to have done it, and ready to focus on checking out, on her terms.

In the third week of September, I dropped in for a quick chat on my way home. I have an image burned into my brain of my friend -- crotchety, ironic, huge-hearted -- standing on her porch with her big smile, as we waved goodbye and mouthed 'See you'.

She was headed to Bombay. I saw her next about five weeks later, at her funeral.

It takes massive courage and clarity to choose quality over time. It's not that Annie never doubted her choice -- she wavered occasionally. But she went with her instincts, and retained control of her life and scripted her own best possible death.

She bore a crushing psychic burden with astonishing integrity, grace, and dignity for ten months. Her suffering was relatively brief, and she died with loved ones around her.

She lived like a titan, and will be missed and cherished by legions of people, but it's the way she faced death that humbles me.

So cheers forever, Annie. What a hoot it's been, and what a privilege.

If we believed in another side, I'd say see you on the other side; but you know what we always said -- we'll be dead and we won't care"

Karim's - Purani Dilli

Karim's is a fascinating story. A restaurant that is not just metaphorically, but almost literally (food, not ambience)  'fit for an emperor'.

It's been around over a hundred years.

In the late 1800's Mohammed Aziz was the cook in the royal court of the Mughal emperor. After the emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was exiled, Aziz left the city for Meerut.

In Meerut he is said to have taught his sons to cook the royal food he used to create for the emperor, insisting it was their heritage.

In 1911, at the coronation of King George V, his son Haji Karimuddin moved back to Delhi to open a dhabha to cater to people attending the coronation. He had just two items on the menu, Alu gosht and Daal with Rumali Roti.

Two months after, he decided to continue, saying 'I want to earn fame and money by serving the royal food to the common man', and that is still what they seem to do.  It is now run by the fourth generation of the Karimuddin family. 

It's actually called Dastar Khwan-E-Karim, and Karim's in short.

Just writing about it, thinking back on the food, is making my mouth water. It's food to die for, and so says me, who is not even a big foodie. It's hard core meat and chicken stuff....it's best for vegetarians to stay away, far far away :)

Even their roti's, their roti's are a slight variation of the regular tandoor roti's. They are called khamiri roti's and are made with wheat and yeast, in the tandoor....they are so soft they just melt in the mouth. The sheekh kabaabs are one of the best I've had.

In fact it's so hard to choose, the entire menu sounds just so good. The mutton raan, the mutton burra, mutton korma, chicken jehangir. Seeing my confusion Swaroop fully capitalized......I could see the glint in his eye when he said 'shall I just order for both' :)

The restaurant itself is spread over many small houses and rooms, and the kitchen is almost like an open kitchen, with the tandoor right there, and the grilled kebabs sizzling on long skewers. Food comes within 2 minutes of ordering, and be warned, there's a queue to enter.

Some Pics:

Some of the comments from National Geographic and BBC on display up front

The tandoor, it's beautiful how well synced the three of them are..it's almost rhythmic to watch

Sheekh kababs being grilled outside

The Khimri roti's and the mutton curries

And if you go, don't even think of driving yourself, leave alone a car, as you can see, there's no space anywhere there for even a cycle rickshaw...you just have to walk it. It's in such narrow gallis opposite the Jama Masjid, that without Swaroop I would never have even found the place.

It's yet well worth it !

Another thanks coming your way Swaroop, you made the Delhi visit that much more interesting.

Jama Masjid, Old Delhi

To continue my chronicles of the Delhi visit....Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in the country.

This is pic courtesy Google, as my pics looked saaad next to this :)

Jama Masjid, derived from 'Jummah' (friday) the traditional day of prayer observed by muslims,  was built by Shahjahan, over 400 years ago. It's when you put all those monumental constructions, Red fort, Jama Masjid and Tajmahal together that you realize the kind of work created by Shah Jahan. It's pretty awesome stuff.

Swaroop and I were talking of how each time we see the Taj, it invariably creates those goose bump moments. And it's like that proverbial good book, you want to keep going back for that one more read (look). God, there's so much to see and do and read and feel....:)

Anyways, back to present....old old present....It was Shahjahan who shifted the capital from Agra to Delhi and built the walled city of Shahjahanabad. It remained capital for all the Mughal emperors after him, and evolved to the Delhi we now know.

The Jama Masjid is massive...  can accommodate a mind blowing 25,000 people at one time. There's an austere kind of grandeur to the place (rhyming and all not intended). No intricate work like we see in other monuments of the time, but just the fact that it was built on a raised platform (like two storeys high) gives it a whole different feel. A view from on top of the minarets would have been worth the climb as it overlooks a lot of old Delhi and especially so the Redfort, but we sadly didn't have that kind of time.

Some (my) pics:

The prayer courtyard

A small prayer or some lecture kind of thing that was on inside. I'm now thinking it would have been interesting to go listen for a bit.

The view of the market from one of the gates. Backdrop is the imposing Redfort.

These two pics are courtesy Google

What a pretty shot... during the month of Ramzan......and there's always tons of pigeons around

And from here we headed to the famed Karim's....

A Beautiful Trajectory

This is Swaroopa, one of our Smile Foundation students, whose growth trajectory  is quite the fascinating one.

Her story starts in  a little village called Padamayavalasa, in Vijayanagar District. Born eldest to a farmer couple, she started her education in a Government school in the village....moved to Hyderabad.....did her schooling here ....completed her graduation......got herself a job in Cognizant....and next month she's getting married ....and..... is all set to be off to Paris !

That's her when we started

It's a story of such quiet determination and persistence, of such major shifts and changes, that I wanted to do an interview with her. She's an extremely quiet and soft spoken girl, in fact does little more than nod and smile through most conversations, so my mom was like, "I don't know how much she'll talk, but go try if you want" :)

I've been trying to co-ordinate a meet for a month now, and finally yesterday, two days before she leaves to get married, we settled down for a chat on my mom's staircase. What I thought would not go longer than half hour, went on for well over an hour.

Here's the interview:

Me: So, Swaroopa, I've known you since you were 10 years old, and I've seen you go through so many tremendous shifts in life, maybe more than any single person I know....are you okay to talk about it?

She smiled a 'yes', nodding acceptance to the 'tremendous shifts' 

Me: How old are you now?

Swaroopa: 24

Me: Let's start from the beginning, where were you born, tell me a little bit about yourself, your background?

Swaroopa: Padamayavalasa

Me: What?? Where?

Swaroopa: Padamayavalasa, Bobbili, Vijayanagar Dist. Should I write it for you?

( I was so touched by that offer... brought on a deeply satisfied  smile)

Me: Did you start school there?

Swaroopa: I went to a small Government school there, till class 2, but after we moved to Hyderabad, I had to start from class 1 again....... they said I did not know anything

Me: When did you move to Hyderabad?

Swaroopa: 2003, I was 9 years

Me: Where did you go to school here?

Swaroopa: Here also I first went to a Government school, but when we saw that I was learning nothing again,  they shifted me to Akshaya Aakruthi

Me: Isn't it Aashraya Aakruthi?

Swaroopa: (hitting her head in embarrassment) Yes, yes, Aashraya Aakruthi.

(I could so understand the nerves)

Me: That's the school for the hearing impaired?

Swaroopa: School for the deaf and dumb

Me: So you studied with children who could not hear or speak?

Swaroopa: Yes. The school was meant for them, and most of the children were deaf and dumb, but there were a few of us who could speak too

Me: How was that experience for you ? Did you learn the sign language too? Can you do it now?

Swaroopa: Yes,  saigal lo matladevaalamu.

Me: Saigal? Is that what it's called? English aa, telugu na?

Swaroopa: Hmmm...don't know, we used to call it Saigal, and we were so used to it that the teachers would tell us to speak when we could and not use saigal.  We were all close friends, never felt anybody was different.

Me: Are you still in touch with any of them?

Swaroopa: Yes, I still have friends from that school. One boy came and met me even last week. I've forgotten how to use saigal, I only remember a little, but I can understand.

Me: How did the teachers there teach?

Swaroopa: They spoke.... they spoke very slowly, those children would follow through lip reading.

Me: How did that kind of teaching work for you? Did it make learning more difficult ? or maybe more easy you think?

Swaroopa: Hmmm....more easy I think. I think languages became easier, hindi... even english grammar I learnt well.  And maths, I became good at maths because it was slow and that gave us time to understand. I really liked that school.

( I could see her eyes cloud over in fond memory)

Me: After schooling what did you do?

Swaroopa: I did maths. economics, commerce in Inter and then B Com. Till 9th it was telugu medium, and after that it was all English medium

Me: How was the shift? From school to college, also the telugu to english medium?

Swaroopa: I initially found it difficult to adjust. Our school had only ten to twelve students per class, so suddenly so many students in a class, we had 50 - 60 students, I found very difficult, I felt lost in the crowd...... I took time, but slowly I got used to it. Once I made friends it became easier.

Me: You live in a single room... as a joint family...your TV is always on, how did you manage to study at home?

Swaroopa: There is one lady near our house who gives tuitions, for free, in the evenings, I used to go sit in her house and study, or I would sit in the park and study. I managed like that only.

Me: After degree, did you straight away start applying for jobs?

Swaroopa: I wanted to do my MBA, I tried, but I didn't get a good rank in ICET, and without a good rank it is too expensive, so I dropped that.

Then I went for bank exam coaching, but I found the competition very tough and thought I wouldn't get in. After that I decided to directly apply for jobs

Me: And when did you get a job? And where? 

Swaroopa: In February, this year...I got a job with Cognizant

Me; How was that shift for you? 

Swaroopa: It was like a new world. Big buildings. Hitech city. I liked getting picked up and dropped by cab. Training was nice. Once production started it was a little difficult, but I managed, now I like it. My manager and team lead don't even speak telugu, but I manage.

Me: To get to a slightly sensitive issue swaroopa......in college and now in office, do you face any challenges considering that people come from so many different backgrounds?

Swaroopa: (after some gentle and then vigorous nodding of the head). Yes, in office people ask, what does your father do and what does your mother do. It becomes difficult, I don't mind telling them, but I am not sure if they will understand or accept. Or some can even tease.

In fact in college, I found later that many students parents are watchmen, drivers or maids but they don't tell, not until they know each other well. Some girls are fine with it, but most are not. 

One of my close friends parents work in RBI, and when she came to our house she said " I don't care what your parents do, to me it is you who matters". To such people I am comfortable telling. Only then I will even bring them to my house, otherwise we only meet outside.

In office also, when the cab comes to pick me up, they assume I live in the flats.....they say, "we've reached, come down". It's difficult at such times.

Me: What about at home? Have you had any challenges because of your having studied?

Swaroopa: Not much, my parents give me a lot of freedom, but my grandfather is very conservative and in our house every decision is taken only by my grandfather. He encouraged studying, but was very particular about dress and who I can talk to.  If he says no, nobody in the house will oppose it. If I put my hair like this he will get angry, most things I listen to, somethings I don't. 

Me: What makes you happy?

Swaroopa: I didn't think about it so deeply. When things are going well I'm happy. Generally happy only.

Me: What makes you sad?

Swaroopa: Sad I don't know, but right now I want the marriage to happen without any disagreements or arguments. Otherwise it will be sad. If it goes well I will be happy.

Me; What makes you angry?

Swaroopa: When people don't look at both sides of things. When they think only they are right, that makes me very angry. People think I am short tempered, but I don't think so, I think I get angry when I have reason.

Me: Ok..onto the next phase...tell me about your marriage. All the way to Paris !

Swaroopa: He is also from our village in Bobbili. His name is Satyanarayana.

Me: So what's the story, how did he start from Bobbili and reach Paris?

Swaroopa: He studied in Bobbili, and after Inter wrote an exam, APRDC, which gave him a Govt scholarship for further studies in pure science. He then did his BSc and MSc in Chemistry, at Hyderabad, then PhD at Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

Me: And how did Paris happen?

Swaroopa: He published an article, and put it online, and the University in Paris saw it and offered him a research position. He does something with environmental pollution.

Me: How are you feeling about going all the way to Paris?

Swaroopa: Happy. Also a little sad because I'm used to living in a joint family and I have to leave everyone and go so far.

Me: So you've been talking to him? How does that feel? All set for marriage !

Swaroopa: Marriage is starting another phase of life. Leaving parents and becoming independent. Nobody else to take decisions for you. It is a high responsibility.

He is nice. Very intelligent, always a class topper. He is good at many things, he does swimming, dancing, jogging, imitates people well....and best part, he knows how to cook, because I don't know how to cook at all. I told him he will have to teach me.

Me: That's a lovely note to end this interview on. Good luck Swaroopa, wishing you a very very happy married life !  

A Wow Moment

Vishakha on the Fortune India's 50 Most Powerful Women in Business List 2017. Wowww !!

That's the page that shows all the power of that list 

The list is based off four criteria:

• The size and importance of their business
• The health and direction of that business
• Her social and cultural relevance
• The trajectory of her career

And when I read that, I totally understood why she would be on that list. A little from the Fortune India write up itself, and a little otherwise:

IndiaFirst, of which she is MD & CEO, is one of India's youngest Insurance companies. She took over, a little over two years ago and turned around the company from a loss making entity into a company that recorded profits of 35.2 crore  in FY 17. 

Today it is one of the fastest growing insurers in the country with a yoy growth of 82%, and under her management the asset base crossed 10,000 crore this year.

Beyond the hard metrics, is the softer and deeper perspective she brings to the business. A leader who cares for her people, one who strives to create a flat organization to give employees that critically important sense of ownership.

I wouldn't be surprised if a large part of this is also the woman's perspective that she brings in; an ability to see the big picture while keeping an eye on detail, like she said ' a never say die spirit and a penchant for details'. 

An analogy I recall her having used years ago, a dish on the table, from one angle can be, it tastes a little off, or to instinctively know which particular ingredient has been under or over used.

Of cultural and social relevance, I'd say is in the very essence of being self driven and self made and growing through the ranks on ones own initiative and merit, right from the word go, many many years ago. The story I like to tell, of how she disappeared into the cave while preparing for her CA. She would write me letters but not meet as she knew meeting meant more distraction and more time. A focus and commitment that's exemplary.

A philosophy she so beautifully represented in her response to this accolade "Keep doing what you think is right, to the best of your abilities and enjoy yourself in doing so. All else will follow. If it doesn't, you atleast enjoyed the journey "

I've heard a lot of her speeches and discussions (albeit not on stage) and at any moment the one thing that stands out is how she will always speak from the heart...with so much meaning and conviction, at times even with great pain to herself. An amazing ability. Drives home her point through brilliant analogies which make it that much more simple to grasp and understand, be it to an individual or an audience of hundreds. Tell it like a story, is what she does best.

And it's been wonderful to watch how she's grown through the process. An instance in example; she's spoken at many a women's forum, strong and powerful...and last year I heard her say "enough, I think it's time I started to talk to the men, they need it as much...I'm going to push for that change in these conventions"

Vishakha, take a bow girl !  You stand inspiration to many many women of the country !

Means much to have been an intimate part of this journey with you.......Feel a huge hug filled with  much joy, pride and many congratulations.

Darya Ganj - Used Book Market

Cliched as it sounds....it's quintessential book lovers paradise.

A 2 km stretch of footpaths laid out with an unbelievable assortment of books, and at equally unbelievable prices. I totally got why it would be called an iconic cultural hub of Delhi. Just the range of books and sheer volume of spread is staggering to say the least.

It's across bylanes of purani dilli, and the wall at backdrop is part of the original walled city of Shahajahanabad which was the Delhi until 1911, when the new city started getting built outside the walls. Former Pakistan President, Pervez Musharaf lived in a haveli by this wall until partition.

Today Darya Ganj is also popular for being host to many large publication offices. I also heard that it's quite often that you see the likes of Kapil Sibal and Jairam Ramesh strolling around. What was more interesting was that Gabriel Garcia Marquez visited a book store here in 1980 (he's special so it mattered :)

The kitaab bazaar (book market) is said to have started circa 1964, and has been there every sunday since. It's no casual stroll, as there's crazy amount of traffic and you just have to have the eye to spot your books real quick as push and shove seems to be accepted norm there. 

In fact space is so used up by books that the shop guy just walks on the books, across his display to reach the book you can only point to. Takes some getting used to.

Books are cross spectrum..... amazing coffee table books, classics (at times first editions), memoirs, chiklits,  childrens books, text books, novels of any genre, books on any topic almost all at throwaway prices. 

After an intial haul of books we chanced upon some guys doing it by the kilogram, Rs.100 a kg, where if you get lucky, you'll find your favorites for as little as Rs. 20. 

Well, well....love by the kilo. This is a guy specializing in Mills & Boon and like genre, some sense of humor that :)

So cute

Part of my haul :)

Go prepared to be enthralled, it's one of those overwhelming experiences you want to have . 

A Super Proud Moment !!

Dhruva's short animated film, 'The End'  has been selected for screening at the Neos Film Fest in Mexico !

I was really excited when he told me about it yesterday, and then got even more excited when I just saw his Instagram account ....art_dhruva 

His FB page

 His film listed

What makes me really proud is not just the outcome (this selection) but more the whole process......starting from the commitment and effort that I saw Dhruva put into the film for the seven months that he worked on it. He was at it night and day, like the proverbial mad man kinds. For a guy who's always taken life rather chilled out, I watched amazed.

A clear indication that great work comes out of that space where creativity meets commitment. 

The concept itself is rather deep and abstract, and to capture that in a seven minute animated film was so challenging, that most times I wouldn't understand what he was telling me. In fact he didn't let me see the film until it was completed.

When I finally saw it, I was blown. I initially thought it was bias, mom's pride and all that, but when I heard feedback from his professors, his mentors, and above all, saw Dhruva's own faith which empowered him enough to send the film to global film festivals, completely on his own initiative, I knew better.

As said to him by his professor 'this film is your reckoning'

(the film itself can't be made public yet, but soon as it can, it'll definitely be up here :)

And I must add, not that it was needed, but this so ratifies and validates that moment when Five years back we were deciding what course he should take, and against a lot of opposing views we stood with Animation. For those who might not know, Dhruva is just completing his 4.5 year course in Animation Design at MIT Institute of Design, Pune.

Dhruva, Huge Congratulations again, and definitely a Super Proud Moment!!

Change is a word...

From Seth

Change is a word...

for a journey with stress.

You get the journey and you get the stress. At the end, you're a different person. But both elements are part of the deal.

There are plenty of journeys that are stress-free. They take you where you expect, with little in the way of surprise or disappointment. You can call that a commute or even a familiar TV show in reruns.

And there's plenty of stress that's journey-free. What a waste.

We can grow beyond that, achieve more than that and contribute along the way. But to do so, we might need to welcome the stress and the journey too.

In Delhi, Old and New

While our visit to Delhi was specific purpose and just two days, we yet managed a few hours to visit the well known sunday second hand book market of Delhi, also known as 'kitaab bazaar', at Darya Ganj.

India Gate on the way. What if seen early morning, would have been pretty morning fog, is now the most spoken about smog of Delhi. This was at noon, on a not cold day.

New Delhi and Old Delhi are both intensely sensory experiences. We were staying at Safdarjung Enclave, so getting to Darya Ganj took us through the fanciest part of Delhi, to reach the heart of Old Delhi where the Kitab Bazaar happens every Sunday. 

Passed through roads with these lovely names etched with Delhi's, rather India's history......Tuglak Road, 10 Janpath, Akbar Road....... and the roads are just so so beautiful. Names which you read in the paper are name boards outside houses. Every turn can throw up something historical.... imposing monuments , impressive embassies, beautiful parks, old tombs...what have you.

What's most apparent by it's absence are hoardings, there isn't even one. It's wide and clean roads, tree lined avenues, rich character .......all go to make you proud to have the city as capital (ignore smog and stuff). 

Equally vivid is the character of old Delhi. History jumps out of our school text books to make itself live. Redfort, Jama Masjid, Kutubminar, Chandni Chowk, Meena Bazaar..... And the chaos and street food of Old Delhi.

After Darya Ganj, we were carrying so many books that we hopped into a cycle rickshaw just for that fifteen minutes to Jama Masjid, and that in itself became an experience worth having. It's a rare skill that it must take to maneuver those roads, we were amazed.

The street of Darya Ganj was so choc o block with, actually with everything, there was every possible mode of transport there, cycle rickshaws, tongas, e-rickshaws (battery operated rickshaws), cars, scooters, bikes, and even a tow van....interspersed with pedestrians.....you almost wonder at how it even moves....it seems gridlocked at any point. 

After walking around Jama Masjid, we did lunch at the iconic Karim's, ( which Swaroop had been talking about even in the train), an eatery that's been featured on many a popular channel and paper, including the National Geographic and BBC.

E Rickshaws which work on shared basis

An old and interesting looking building on the way

Tongas, which are still very much in use

On our way to Jama Masjid, from sitting in the cycle rickshaw

  

Darya Ganj, Jama Masjid and Karim's deserve their own posts :)

24 hours in Rajdhani Express

It's been almost fifteen years since I've done a train journey ( recent Nilgiri express from Ooty being the only exception), leave alone a 24 hour train journey.

Seems like another world experience.

Swaroop and I were planning a trip to Delhi, a plan that's been afoot for over a month. We were trying to coordinate our respective flights from Bangalore and Hyderabad, and suddenly he says, "Smitha akka, I'm thinking of doing one way by train, I'll still reach same Saturday morning as you" , and I could sense my antennae quiver. Didn't take me long to say 'know what...maybe me too, in fact, if it's Rajdhani I can hop into the same train at Hyderabad' . And that's how it started. 

No easy task.

First off, I couldn't get tickets. We were planning well in advance, yet my ticket from Hyd was wait listed......a chance we couldn't take.

And I found that strange, not just because of the travel time of 24 hours, but also because train fare from Hyd to Delhi is actually more than flight. Indigo was at Rs.4300 and Rajdhani was at Rs. 4440. Yet I couldn't get tickets.

By then the bee was buzzing in the bonnet, so what to do. Swaroop was sweet enough to go to the reservation office at Bangalore to explore workarounds, and find one he did. The counter clerk said, 'book from Bangalore, and ask her to board at Secunderabad'.  And another surprise, the fare from Bangalore to Delhi was actually lower than Hyd to Delhi inspite of a 1/3 plus distance. 

The system is so weird and knocked out. After all this, we found that the bogie was practically empty. A scattering of people. It's sad they make it so difficult.

Anyways, that didn't stop us, maybe even added, to us totally enjoying the 24 hours in the train ( 38 for Swaroop who was travelling Bangalore - Delhi)

The Rajdhani is a beautiful train...... with nice big windows that allow for a wonderful view, great food, squeaky clean loos, nicely maintained compartments, clean window panes.........it was lovely.

Evening tea came with a samosa, yummy sandwiches, freshly made sonpapdi, and fried peanuts.....full timepass munching. Dinner started with steaming hot soup and breadsticks, with main course of salad, roti, chicken curry,  dal and ghee rice, and oh yeah, ice cream too. One of my most enjoyed vanilla ice creams.  In fact both of us enjoyed the ice cream so much that we get two more. They definitely do a great job with food.

While I was fully equipped with music and a good book, I touched neither.......just the window was enough. And we had my favourite berth, the side lower berth. Curtain drawn you can literally shut out the rest of train and disappear into your own world.

The landscape at one point seems monotonous, especially so the long stretch through Maharashtra, but once we get to Madhya Pradesh you see the difference. There's mountains and tunnels and some forest. Rajdhani has only major stops. Kazipet, Bhalaspur, Nagpur, Bhopal and Jhansi. Otherwise you see it zip through all other stations.

At Kazipet, I went off into a reverie of sorts, some memory trigger which takes you back into childhood, and lots of lovely associated thoughts. And the mountains and lakes whizzing past seem to just aid that reverie space and make it that much more beautiful.

Like when my dad later asked how was the long train ride, I was like "It didn't seem long at all....time just went by so beautifully". In fact Swaroop was like, 'if I didn't have to be back at work, I'd have even gone back by train', and I second that :)

It's like this dream space where you can totally engage into life, within yourself and without, with none of the usual life of detail interruptions..... a space worth seeking out when we can.

Some pictures from the train ride:

Diksha and Sameer came to drop me off early in the morning, and she got to say hi to Swaroop too.

I was so excited seeing the windows getting cleaned :)

Diksha and me saying our adieus

That's the route it takes, a full on south through to north India

The window from the inside. In fact soon as Swaroop got in at Bangalore, that's the message he sent me 'we have lovely big windows' :)

A pretty view

Crossing a bridge

Inside the bogie

This was soup before dinner

Swaroop engrossed in the outside

Couple of sunset pics

Next morning, Hazrat Nizamuddin Station, New Delhi, bustling with activity at 6.30 am, and we stepped into the fog and nip of the just setting in, Delhi winter.

Thanks Swaroop for that brilliant and hatke thinking, and inspiration too. (when I first checked tickets and found it so expensive, I voiced aloud "guddu, it's actually more expensive than flying, and twenty four hours" and he's like "but it has a long great view smitha akka", and that's all it took).

Next time you have such whacky ideas, tell ok :)