Towards a more honest expression of self.....

Carl Jung once observed,

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

This morning I came across this write up in High Existence, on becoming 'the most honest expression of yourself' with thoughts from Nietzsche (who I love right since college)..........made for an interesting read, and it sounded like one neat thought, so here's excerpts:

"The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche recognized that in order to become the master of yourself, it was necessary to overcome yourself—to leave behind your established patterns and paradigms.

He spoke of how our conditioning runs deep, and the need to regularly transcending our current conditioning to become something more.  

In pursuit of this end, he developed the idea of a “gymnastics of the will”—a practice of undertaking temporary experiments of willpower, with the intention of strengthening, mastering, refining, and deepening our being.

The solution to this problem, for Nietzsche, was to regularly attempt a variety of life experiments—experiments that would push one to act contrary to one’s conditioning.

If we could just make a habit of attempting life-transforming challenges, Nietzsche thought we would unearth our own greatness, that which lies beneath our conditioning, and become the most honest expression of ourselves"

Birthdays

I simply love birthdays......

A day when you get up feeling on top of the world for no reason other than that you are.

While it's fun to wake up to the nice messages and lovely wishes, it can also be a day to look within. I love to start the day with my diary, go inward ........ clear out cobwebs that might have formed..... open up some windows that might have shut in........let go of stuff ......let in some fresh air.........let that energy flow in freedom.

Invariably that energy flow throws up some new Aha's and Insights.... making something shift from an unconscious space to a conscious space. For this time, I believe I figured out one more layer of my relationship with 'attachment'. Just capturing those can be a process of growth.

There's this poem of Rumi's that represents it so beautifully:

A day to ruminate......and what a nice play on words with Rumi :)

Theen Aur Aadha

An intriguing film, and kind of meditative, soul stirring and disturbing too. 

It's a film shot in one house over three eras, in the first it's a school, the second a brothel and the third a residence. 

It's a stone walled building, solid, impenetrable, narrow dark corridors....and it's in one of the rooms that all the stories play out. It's like the souls being trapped in by the walls and the relationships within it. 

The narrative of the three stories are titled 'Yamraj' (god of death), Natraj (god of dance), Kamraj (god of love) and the last half is Yakshraj (half god).

Yamraj, is a seemingly innocent but deep play between an ailing and almost dying grandfather and his sweet and innocent grandson.

Natraj, an honest space in an unexpected relationship between Jim Sarbh and a prostitute.

Kamraj is a seventy year old couple finding love again.

Yakshraj comes with some lilting, haunting music that reaches a crescendo, seeming to represent an escape from the building.

Endearing stories.....ambiguous too...the movie left me with an underlying feeling of some kind of dread and fear.

I understand each story was one long shot and so Dar Gai, the director chose all theater personalities, and that feeling comes in so distinctly. Each story is like a play...a chapter, endearing in it's own way.

I'd say watch....

A film that's also been screened at the London film fest. to add weightage to my recommendation :) 

तुम न होती

Words like wow, thanks, touched, honoured won't do the job.......maybe the right one is 'humbled'.

I really really am Girija. 

And for you to send it on the stroke of midnight ....no words...it's overwhelming, so just feel the feeling pal.

Paudhe se Yaari

A lovely store......actually a lovely experience....just entering it gave us such nice vibes. When that guy came by to ask if I was looking for something specific and I said "no, not really, just being here feels good.....you've done a brilliant job, what's your name" (all in one breath, poor guy :), Diksha's like "I knew it ma.......I knew you'd like it"

Such an inspiring store. It's tag line is 'gift a plant'. And there's cute stuff written around....

"gift people what they love, and you will be gifting them happiness"

"collect things you love, and your house becomes your story"

"we all need beautiful things"

It's a concept store, and I think it's only today that I understood what a concept store is. A space that enables not just shopping..... but an enriching experience. Not about utilitarian use of space....but incorporating a lot of creativity and art.

Focus is not on 'what'....it's on the 'how' .

It has an indoor area showcasing many pretty and interesting plant holders, and an outdoor nursery with lots of succulents and indoor plants. And Clement, knows his plants and planters inside out, making it that much more interesting........and we ended picking up more than we thought :)

Some pictures:

The nursery alongside

Diksha keenly observing the potting of the plants

two of the bunch we got

 with Clement

A favourite of Diksha's and mine, the plant itself is so fragile..and so aptly named 'baby's tears', and diksha picked a super cute rabbit as holder.

Deech, that was a lovely and thoughtful birthday gift.

While I will naturally nurture all the plants, I think there will be that special little something with this cute rabbit and baby tears......that coincidentally (??) brought out this distinct feeling of tenderness from both of us. Was a lovely moment. Thanks sweetheart !

The Mad Hatter Idea - 3

Now on to the actual visa documentation.

This was nothing like what we are familiar with.

When I'd applied for my own visa last year, I vaguely recalled seeing an option of domestic help visa, so that's where I started my research. It existed, and that was my trigger point too.

I resolved to put in place a well thought out process, and create as robust an application as possible. 

The interesting parts of it were needing to prove that Upendra had worked with them for twenty years (that's part of eligibility). So we went scouting for photographs. Sadly, with the house having got demolished we had no idea where the photographs had gone....there were none available. (possibly also the issue of getting digital pictures and losing the phone and stuff )

Mom came up with this nice idea of getting letters from neighbours as proof, so there was drafting of soppy sounding letters with passport details and stuff, and Shobha went about the part of meeting old neighbours and stuff. And we're also still looking for photographs.

Somewhere along, I got bogged down by drafting of contracts, plus I didn't want to allow any space for chance, so decided to go find a consultant. Found Y Axis online, and Upendra and I went armed with all our research. 

They said "five thousand for letting you know if it's possible, and twenty thousand for process"

I was like, I already know it's possible, I've done my homework....so why the five.

But no, they have their own process. And thus started the calls and meets with Syeda and Sandeep from Y Axis.

We're now in the process of firming up on documentation......  a long list from our end, a long list from Janardhan uncle. It's so detailed, that just as example, they even need pictures of the room in which he will stay when he goes there. Imagine (and aunty's like "you must be having more pictures of this house than I do :)

Little adventures in between...... something as simple as getting xeroxes is so not easy in the US, and aunty struggled with that, and when she finally sent it....that cover took over a month to reach us.

We've all been at it for a couple months now....and soon it'll be time for that final interview.

Interesting to note is somewhere along the way everyone's skepticism scale started to shift. We started to hear whispers of 'maybe it'll happen you know'...... 'if he's fated to go he'll go' ......'I feel he might actually get it'..... 'maybe after all this is done, you will think it wasn't a big deal'.

And that kind of amazed me. How does the same issue go from 'it's a crazy idea' 'it's just too much work' 'it'll be a miracle if it happens' to.............. 'not a big deal'.

I was like "No, no, no ....... let's be fully aware of what it's taken......... not as much the effort, as what it takes to hold onto a mad hatter idea over months":)

We're hoping to pay the Visa fees this week, and schedule the interview. Upendra's been actually getting prep classes from Sandeep on how to handle the interview.

Next post in series after the interview.....

The Mad Hatter Idea - 2

Decision made - the very first step was to get Upendra a passport.

That I thought would be fairly straightforward, it's after all a passport.

I couldn't have been wronger.

It was an absolute roller coaster experience.

First I discover that his real name is Uppari Uppaliah, which he thought was too old fashioned for a city, so when he moved to Hyderabad he just decided to rename himself. Just like that. And it doesn't end there.

To my utter dismay I saw that each of his identification cards, believe it or not, had different names. 

He had five identification cards; an aadhar card, a driving license, a ration card, a voter card, and even a pan card (thanks to Kamlesh aunty who had ensured all that for them when she was here), but each with different names. I've no idea how he managed that but there it was. One had Upendra, one Upender and the other three had Uppaliah, each with different spellings. 

We took two whole months to navigate through that mess..... a lot of visits to e-seva, the pan card agent, his village.....until we were finally ready to apply for a passport. 

And oh yes, a twist....his date of birth read 1.1.1980. I was like "oh, nice...you are born on Jan 1?", and he's like "ledhu amma, naku emi telusu epudu putano...edho date chepesanu" (how do I know when I was born, I just put some random date when they asked me :).

That was so sweet....and it passed.

Then we hit the next major obstacle. 

The address in the cards was Kamlesh aunty's house, which no longer existed. It had been demolished and converted into apartments.

I initially thought that wasn't a big deal, we'd get new address proof for where he lived now.

That's when I saw how different, and difficult it is for people in that demographic to wade through system and bureaucracy. We couldn't get address proof. Try as we might, we were just going in circles.

That's when I decided to do some jugaad. Decided to go with the old house address, a house which didn't exist. (The options were to say he continued to work as watchman there, or as cook in one of the apartments which had taken on the old address)

That was scary as police verification is physical and real. Told you it was jugaad.  Don't want to put too much detail here, but suffice it to say that I told Upendra that if our plan fell through both he and I would go to jail.

By this time this was hot topic in the family. My dad was totally against what I was doing saying it was just too risky. So was Dhruva.  ( I agree, I'm normally a law abiding citizen too.......but :)

We lucked out. Guess it should be he lucked out, but I had my neck stuck out so much in this, that I was as thrilled as he was. He cleared the police verification, in fact that police guy and he sat and had chai at the gate of the house....a half hour that Shobha and I spent biting nails, wondering if Upendra could hold the story.

He now has a passport ...and in a shiny nice case to boot (for which I had to go to the passport office twice :)

By this time everyone was saying if we could swing this, it would be nothing short of 'a miracle'. Well, to me the passport itself felt like one.

Next is the visa documentation. Will make that phase 3 :)

The Mad Hatter Idea

Well, like I said......that's what it's been called in the family :)

The idea: To send Upendra to Hawaii

First a little context:

Upendra and Shobha, moved from Warangal to Hyderabad, as a young couple to work as watchman at Kamlesh aunty's place, all of twenty years back. And over the years, they worked in all capacities..... caretaker, gardner, cook, driver, companion (to ammamma).... just about everything. And this they did right until the house was sold and demolished about five years back. Over the years they almost became family.

They had children, got them married, and even became grandparents in the same house.

Upendra and his son Raju

Shobha works with me as a cook now and I realize she knows more about ammamma than anybody else in the family. Hardly a day goes by without her bringing ammamma into conversation. I find that so so endearing. 

Consequent to my visit to Hawaii last July,  in one casual conversation with mom, she said something about how nice it would be for Kamlesh aunty to have Upendra and Shobha with them in Hawaii.

A random thought.....but the seed was sown.

I was like "why don't we try... like really try.... it would be so so good for both of them".

This was nine months back. I spoke to them, but Shobha didn't seem keen....too many family responsibilities she said, and she's the decision maker in the family..... so it got dropped and life went on.

A couple months later it was back in a new avatar......this time with the thought of just Upendra going.

I brought it up with Shobha, and told her to ask Upendra. She looked so sceptical and disbelieving that I told her to bring Upendra with her one day, so I could talk to him directly.

I remember that day when Upendra was initiated into the idea.  I explained the idea in all it's ramifications.....told him about the possibilities........he looked between dazed and more dazed.

I sat him down with a globe and a laptop.

Here was a guy who had not seen beyond Warangal and Hyderabad. I realized I needed to realign my starting points itself. Opening a map wasn't enough.

So I actually started with "do you know the world is round?"

It was like a geography class that started in Warangal and went all the way to Hawaii. Explained what countries are....... distance between Warangal and Hyderabad ......  then scaled up to Hyderabad to the USA.....and then to that tiny little dot that Hawaii is, in the middle of the pacific.

After all, if he was going all the way there, even for two years, he needed to understand implications. I told the story and then said, 'think about it and let me know...it's a big decision....talk to whoever you want to, come ask me as many questions as you want to..........but think, and I'm giving you a week.

It was like selling a dream.

He took three days.....the implications must have slowly sunk in. In fact, I understand he thought Mounica, his eldest daughter would say, 'no he should not go', but apparently she was full enthu and said 'baapu, etuvanti chance yevariki raadhu, nuvvu yes anu". Once he'd made up his mind is when I saw him get all excited.

He and Shobha are so fond of Kamlesh aunty and Janardhan uncle that even today they have a picture of them hung on a wall of their one room house. To them, beyond the financial implications was the opportunity to serve uncle and aunty again in their time of need.

It was a beautiful process to watch.

How his mind moved from incomprehension..... to confusion ....to fear......to certainty..... to excitement.

And then began the process. Guess I'll do that as phase II :)

Visas, Visas and Visas

Actually I can add a fourth visa too.

Anybody asks what I'm upto these days, and more often than not my response would be to do with visas.

And that's so not surprising..... I realized I'm neck deep in process of 4 visas...yes, four. And what's more, each to a 'different country' and each under a 'different category'.

While it's all set processes, which in itself is just so much documentation, when you're in it you also see unique issues that can come up with each, and then finding the work arounds......needless to say it's driving me nuts.

To articulate and preserve this individually complex overlap phase

Dikshas Student Visa to Australia:

This became complex because she has gap years in her education .....and her consultant said there's a high chance of 'VNG' (visa not granted). In fact the previous university had refused even trying, despite awarding her a scholarship, just on this count.

It was nail biting twenty days, though that stress was entirely unspoken.......by diksha, by me, by everybody in family...we finished applying and then it was radio silence on topic. Making it that much more silently stressful.

I have the courage to even write this because this was a success. She got her visa to Australia,  culminating a seven month process...... right from taking the decision to go abroad to study, figuring which country, which university, getting finance in place, interviews, admission process and all of that.

And now finally she's all set to go off for three years, to do her dream program on 'wild life conservation'.

Lots of joy, relief and gratitude there.

Dhruva's Cultural Visit Visa to Italy:

He got selected (again) to be part of 'Cinemadamare', a three month travelling cinema campus that travels across Italy making cinemas. 

Having experience from last year, we thought we had a robust application. And this with the add on factors that dates from Italy had come in late, plus he'd added in a five day visit to Netherlands, which definitely added a lot more work to process. 

Last week while filing, (after rescheduling the interview three times) they said "your passport is damaged, you'll need to come back with a fresh one". But we have no time see....and luckily he  managed to convince them. But came back to say "they made me write damaged passport in so many places amma (which was so slight we hadn't even noticed) that instead of sitting back, I have to now wait nervously". And the waits on.

Upendra's Domestic Help Visa to the USA:

The trickiest and most challenging is Upendra's visa, a domestic help visa to go work with Kamlesh aunty in Hawaii. This one is literally being called a 'mad hatters idea' in the family, but one I'm working on with everything I have. The process from word get go has been on for over six months now, and the kind of situations this has thrown up is so extreme and so crazy, that it deserves it's own post. 

And finally, before I could even finish rejoicing Diksha's Visa clearance, I'm set to apply for my own visa. I had to pretty much push, pull, drag myself to even start the process.

And therein came the sudden inspiration to take a break and write this post :)

Goa with Vishakha

Walking, talking, eating, drinking, chilling....and more, all on the beach.

That's what we did. Once we entered the resort, we stepped out only three days later, only to head back to the airport. 

All time was by the sea.....on the beach or by the beach or in a shack on the beach. 

In process, I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said we explored deeper nuances of our relationship with the sea.....and more significantly, our own. Captured by "it's interesting how each trip we seem to open up newer areas of the relationship....who'd think a space as deep as we share can even go further".

That was as beautiful as it gets.

Catching dawn and dusk...... waves just lapping  the feet, experiencing the softness of the sand, the wind in the hair, the sun on the face....... we walked about fifteen kms each day.... her fitbit being hard evidence......and my calf muscles telling their own story today :)

Interspersed were the coffees and teas......... the pina coladas and wines....the snails and shells......the samosas and bhels......also some rather interesting people we chanced upon.

Rest through pics:

This is an uninterrupted stretch of beach, right from Aguada fort to Baga, and while it's the most touristy stretch of beaches, it was yet beautiful. It's funny how the crowds stay together in specific spots, and you move beyond and you have as much beach to yourself as you want.

The stretch of beach

Raman Cottages is wonderful, in terms of ambience and location....this is from the dining area, where we spent the hotter part of day....even the ac in the room couldn't drag us away from here. (ma and vijji aunty, I'm sure you recognize it :)

Us, post what we thought was a simple dal chaawal lunch. Until I sent diksha this picture and she says "pretty ....  must also say you two have a good appetite" :)

While it looks like I took a picture of the dog, it's actually Vishakha deeper in that I was getting a long shot off

that's a closer one, with her looking all happy standing at the sangam, the spot where the river meets the sea

From further away......always partial to the spot where the river meets the sea

What it takes to bring the boat back to shore against the flow

Pretty shades of blue

We saw this elderly couple sitting in the water for over three hours..... and I recalled my home stay host of five years back, telling me about this ritual that traditional Goans do. It's an yearly ritual of immersing themselves in the salt water as a healing process. This looked like that.

So when I saw the man walk up the beach, it was nice opportunity to chat up.......and that was one fascinating conversation.

Tulsidas used to work with the first chief minister of Goa after it became a state. A little into the chat he says there were only two things he used to find very difficult.....one was how much food they would order, and how much got wasted. (forgot the second, but it was an equally interesting perspective).

And yes, we spoke of the ritual too; two times a year they spend a few hours in the sea and come out and cover themselves with sand, and then go back in, and he said it prevents aches and pains and any wounds or illnesses they may potentially have, heal on their own. So plausible and so interesting.

He now drives a taxi.

One of the beautiful sunsets of the trip

What we did post sunset.....chill at a beach side shack

That's night life just starting on a crowded stretch of beach

Back to the resort, the jaadu standing all proud after half the grounds were done :)

In the resort....a cat, fully pregnant and so trusting that it jumped onto my lap, even without invite. And vishakha in a splash of colour between the beautiful bounganvillae and the intoxicatingly fragrant firangipani

Mohammed Ansari and Anand who went out of their way to make our experience so comfortable and wonderful

A final picture

A closing thought; what was hopeful when we began in 2017.....what we wondered why we'd never done before........what we wanted to keep going......hoped to atleast, was a trip by ourselves each year. We've done it third year in a row. So happy.....and what a wonderful one !

A quote I'm pondering...

"Devotion is about you. Maybe you use another as inspiration, but you change your quality into a profound sense of sweetness." - Sadhguru

Rings so true......and not just about devotion, it fits most any emotion.

Be it tenderness, awe, creativity, love.....it's what you use as inspiration and enable the experience within yourself. And that profound sense of sweetness that he talks of..... it makes itself available in abundance enough to touch everything you touch. 

On the flipside.......the difficult emotions too. Be it anger, sorrow, a sulk, disappointment....

There's no choosing only nice emotions and not the difficult ones....they will both happen. You avoid one...you also avoid the other. The source is one, you shut the door and you shut it to both.  In order to experience the spectrum of life we need to keep the possibility open, the space of vulnerability alive.

What's in our hands is which are the ones we want to expand...... to live, to experience, to nourish, to grow.

That's a choice.

Going to Goa Again !!

Who goes to Goa twice within three weeks huh !

Well,  I am :)

It's fascinating to be able to step out and see how this came about...how the mind works, even ones own.

Last week Vishakha msgd with "want to come to Goa for two days?" and followed it up with "look what Google photos threw back at me today...it's like a sign".

My first response was "ayyo, but I just got back from Goa after a ten day trip no"

We got talking, and then the thinking slowly shifted.......like a whisper.

It was about listening to that whisper.

and it went......it is about spending time together, not about Goa (aaaand it's Goa!)..... she has a super hectic schedule (she's found the days) ......I, on the other hand have a life today that's relatively flexible (why let conditioning rule) ..... and it is just two days (how difficult can that be )

Within the hour I msgd her back saying "I'm in vish....let's do it ".

So off tom ...and what's more, the two days has nicely shifted to three :)

On being heard..

A beautifully articulated piece on why talking about issues helps ......it's by a Native American poet, Oglala Lakota :

"talking about deep issues is important to a process of healing. For me, I think it’s not just healing, I would add to that a sense of justice, being heard. 

And then, on the other hand, hearing and listening to these narratives, and engaging in a conversation  — it is not about guilt, and it’s not about shame. It is about freedom from denial. It allows a liberation."

I Am

An anthology of four stories, each quite intense.....and as indicated by title, about recognizing and owning deep and difficult facets of oneself.

While Onir has picked difficult issues for each, his subtle and non judgmental style make it an intelligent and impactful film.

Considering each story plays out for a crisp thirty minutes, a lot is carried through the powerful portrayals.

I am Afia ; with Nandita Das, a woman who wants to have a child, only to find her husband is involved with someone else and wants a divorce..... and how she figures she can still go ahead and have that child.

I am Megha ; with Juhi Chawla and Manisha Koirala, a story based in Kashmir, during partition........exploring deep hurt and what leads to real forgiveness. 

I am Abhimanyu ; with Sanjay Suri, Nafisa Ali and Anurag Kashyap, on coming to terms with child sexual abuse, and again the ability to overcome and forgive.

I am Omar ; with Rahul Bose and Anurag Mathur, a story I personally found difficult to watch because of the police brutality and intolerance in the context of gay men, and how it being legal is yet only on paper.

Despite not being connected, each story grips you as it explores deep emotions of hurt and forgiveness.....and each story is left without closure.

Guess it is finally about 'freedom to be oneself', as the movie starts with the line from Tagore :

"where the mind is without fear and the head is held high....."

Strongly recommended

Indian authors to Indian movies

As anybody around my age would know, we grew up reading Enid Blytons, Nancy Drews, Hardy Boys......graduated to Sidney Sheldon, James Hardley Chase, Harold Robbins.......and then on to Alistair Maclean, Wilbur Smith, Jeffery Archer........Paulo Coelho, Ayn Rand, Richard Bach....and so the story went.

Around ten years back is when I started reading Amitav Ghosh, Jhumpa Lahari, Vikram Seth, Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni, Manu Joseph, Shashi Deshpande, Jaishree Mishra, Harimohan Paruvu, Namita Gokhle, Amish Tripati.......and somewhere along I've realized I now go pretty much only to the Indian author section of book shops.

Now, I'm seeing this happen with cinema too.

After years and years of American and British cinema, with some global cinema and ofcourse some bollywood, there is now such a brilliant choice of Indian Indie cinema on Netflix and Amazon, that my default pick is Indian Cinema..... across languages.

I was talking to Dhruva about it yesterday, and he said " It's not surprising....it's what you can relate to more naturally no amma".

So true.

I love that it's now not just about liking travel within the country more, reading Indian authors more but that I can also indulge my cinema need with great quality desi stuff.

Was a wonderful realization for self ...and loving the knowing :)

Made in Heaven

A web series I've heard many a folk say they binge watched. It's nine episodes of an hour each, yet people across the board have done it. It's much talked about. Must mean something.

Watch, and you know why.....it is such a bold and sensitive handling of issues that people usually shy away from talking about......issues expected to be kept inside the closet. 

Tara Khanna and Karan Mehra are business partners in a wedding planning company, and through their experiences we see beyond the glitz and glamour of the Indian weddings, it's obsession with social perceptions..... it's hypocrisies, biases and regressive mindsets.

Intertwined into the weddings they execute, are their own stories, so insightfully told. Theirs and a few other most interesting and wonderfully depicted characters. And when I say bold, I mean it not just emotionally, or insightfully, but also graphic bold... like nothing we've seen in indian cinema.

Look deeper, and you see each struggling to break through some form of repression, guess mirroring a large segment of the educated, working and affluent class of society. 

Of all the marriages and relationships, of the ones they plan and the ones they live, the only happy one seems to be of two sixty year olds who are happy to plan a nice wedding, again breaking barriers.

It's not for nothing that it's made waves.

Kudos to the team, the directors, writers and actors ....they were captivatingly brilliant. 

Music Teacher

A simple and charming film that seems to explore love....... through longing, waiting and hope.

It's set in the beautiful mountains of Himachal, with the ethereal beauty of the valleys, the gurgling streams and the clouds so beautifully captured.

Beni, the music teacher is back from Mumbai to live with his widowed mother (neena gupta who is as brilliant as ever) after the death of his father and he is happy living the simple life and earning a living through teaching music. He finds his star student in Jyotsna.

He is so focused on making her a success that he seems to not see that which is staring him in his face, that what Jyotsna wants is him. And by the time he realizes his feelings for her, she is gone.

The movie seems to make waiting into this endearing and intimate space......it's like waiting taking on a life and purpose of it's own, embodied by a nice line "tumhara intezaar kitnaa sundar hai". 

That it had  rehashes of  'phir vahi raat hai' and 'rhimjhim gire saavan', set in those beautiful locales just made it so much more endearing.

A lyrical love story and a worthy watch.

And I read somewhere that Sarthak Dasgupta had this script with him for an incredible seventeen years, finding no takers in bollywood; until the new age access to netflix that enabled him to bring his story to celluloid..... in itself an inspiring story.

Kiran's Journey - Through my eyes

Where does one even start with something like this......

It's not about the twelve years, as much as how the graph of the twelve years has moved. It's the journey through such intense moments of peaks and troughs that it becomes a story not just worth telling, but almost overwhelming to tell.

from ten years back

What triggered me is when yesterday, on the staircase as he leaves, he turns and says "you remember the movie Guru? I've told you earlier, and I'm telling you again.... I am Abishek Bachan, I am in the making.... and you are my Mithun da, mark my words Smitha"

And I knew that I had to put it together, this story needed to be told.

Let me try chronologically.....

Kiran and I met during the Google hiring tests, back in 2006 ....total strangers, yet in retrospect, we both know something connected on that very day. 

I joined earlier, maybe a month or so earlier and distinctly remember this tall and gangly youngster of about 24, walking in with a Peter Drucker tucked under his arm, trying hard to look like he belonged. Not easy entering the portals of what can be intimidating to the best of us......an epitome of not just smartness and calibre but also of cockiness and fashion, as Google was all of that. They after all have a hiring rate of 0.04 %.

Here was a boy from Kurnool, who had found his way to Hyderabad with a singular burning ambition of joining Google.....had enrolled in Ramakrishna Math to up his language skills, and through sheer grit and perseverance, trying for the seventh year in a row......making it into Google.

And then there was no stopping him. 

The first few years were idyllic, Google was new in India and we were a pampered lot. Work was great, it was a fun bunch, there were unbelievable freebies in the form of the latest phones and tablets, brilliant offsites and travel, trainings and exposure of the kind we couldn't conceive of. And kiran absorbed it all like a hungry sponge.

We've done daily coffee hours for years....... many many cup hours in Hyd and many in the US. We share a common passion for books, cinema, thinking and travel. The picture above is on a road trip to a light house at Rheas point that we did in the US, a wonderful trip.

Five years in, and then came a turning point. He moved to Google, US.

I was in Google Hyd for two more years before I quit, but up until then I would hear these wonderful stories, from him....and about him. He grew to be recognized as one of the best managers, with folks in the US rating him at exceptional levels. The 'sought after guy' not just by his reportees, but also by senior management, and not to speak of the girls.... I have some fascinating stories there as well :)

Life went on....he settled into the US... I quit Google and moved to Bangalore.

And then came that fateful day when he called me from mountain view to say "I think I'm ready to move on, I want to come back, I want to do something of my own"

This was at a stage when he was doing amazingly well... earning a whopping salary, with great esops and perks... with a clearly visible enviable growth trajectory.

But like I said....there was no stopping him.

We spent hours discussing possibilities, he made several visits to Bangalore, and while he had nothing concrete in mind, he said "let me first quit, let me create that vacuum, and I will leave it to the universe to fill it in". 

He gave in his papers. And he moved to Bangalore.

There started the journey of Egnify ....a play of words on Ignify and Education....with a catchy tag line of 'Ignifying Minds'. It's an education analytics company.

This was in 2016.

We would meet as often as we could, discuss vision, culture, hiring, growth, marketing, analytics....anything. I remember his pushing a lot of his hiring interviews onto me :)

And Egnify became his life..... and his crucible test.

Egnify has been a journey that has put him through uncertainties and pressures that are hard to imagine. The ups and downs were so intense that I firmly believe it would have tested and broken anybody with lesser mettle.

Kiran went from a guy having over 50 lakh in his account, a guy who gifted his friends Bose speakers (me included), to a point where  he had to buy a phone for Rs.2000 as he couldn't afford better. For a guy who has been spoilt on the best of Nexus and Motos, I can only imagine what that must have been like.

Even when I offered to buy him one, he said "no, I need this to remind me of what I'm going through....these difficulties are to be experienced and remembered Smitha".

There were days in Bangalore where we've discussed what can be that point of failure, when does one give up, when does it become too much......days he almost cried.

After a gut wrenching period he got his first round of funding, and most serendipitously. Thanks there to Abinica, who I've never met, but feel I know.

For a while he breathed easy. The company grew ..... along with it the joys, the work, the team...and so did the issues.

While on the one hand he was winning awards, being invited to IIT to talk, getting great press, TV interviews, meeting the Nandan Nilakaneni's of the world..........there have also been days when he's hit rock bottom. Days when contracts fell through at last minute. Days he had to set aside all levels of ego and go back to friends to borrow for payment of salaries. I remember times I liquified mutual funds to meet that need....he'd return the amount on the exact said date, and before I could even reinvest he would need it again. Seems almost funny now.

His worst was when from being the son that his parents depended on and showed off, he could not only not give to, but went back to taking from. (he didn't take a salary for the first two years). While they've stood by him, rock solid through it all, it's not been easy for either of them. For what he put them through, I know he died a few deaths in the process. Those are the unshed tears I've seen.

I know this is beginning to sound morose, but trust me it's also a high, and an aspirational space....and this is only a glimpse of what it's been like. In fact there's enough there to fill a book.

I recall this day when he was invited to Malaysia to receive an award, and he didn't have money for the flight tickets. That kind of epitomizes the story.

His health suffered, his morale suffered.......there were days he'd be sitting here and saying "i'm finding it difficult to even breath.... every facet of mine feels empty... energy asala ledhu"

And that was the story of our Thursdays....

The one thing I have to say for him though....at every point he kept in awareness that Kiran and Egnify were deeply connected, but different. He would own Egnify, but it would never own him. A philosophy from the Gita that we've often referred to, and which held him in good stead.

By 2019 he employed 22 tech guys, and to run an office like that needs cash flows, needs that money to flow. In a start up where the product is new and what you're selling is not a better product but a new product, one that's evolving to match vision.....the growth path is wrought with uncertainty.

And he was a lone soldier, the only man in the arena ....and the battle was his. I could only watch from the ringside.... hold out a hand when needed and cheer him on when I could.

Yesterday was special, cause when we met and I was like  "chepu kiran, elaaunnavu .... what's been happening", he was actually overwhelmed when he said "I do have something to tell....inka atuvanti kashtalu ayipoynayi .....those difficulties are finally over"

In a line...... he's reached a stage where VC's and Funders are reaching out to him. His work and effort have been recognized in the market as worth betting on.

It's a changing road.....maybe still an uphill road.....but what matters is that there is an exciting road ahead, a well earned one.

Kiran, Happy Birthday !!

Photograph

A story that starts with a photograph.....and is almost as still life as a photograph is.

Excruciatingly slow moving.......yet captivating. It does what a still life does.....makes you pause ...makes you look beneath the surface, to touch underlying emotions that will flitter for a second, in the eyes, in that little gesture.....hardly reach the lips. 

One of those films that speaks more through it's silences.

An unusual love story between a street photographer and a star student. A man of routine, a girl who has not lived her own, opposing social realms. And through those differences grows that mysterious bond. Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Sanya Malhotra were brilliant, and so were the support cast.

A third star is Mumbai, through some brilliant cinematography. It was that first shot of Mumbai, that caught my attention and then had me glued.

It's a film by Ritesh Batra of the lunch box fame. It's starts with a whisper, gives you loads of possibility and then leaves you to figure out how the story goes.....

I'd recommend...quite strongly in fact.

A story of my AC

Actual title ought to be

'the story of my AC, some bad decision making and a stroke of good luck'

The AC went kaput, it kept tripping the power. After a week of chasing I got an AC mechanic to come take a look. He came, did some intense checking; I call it intense because just seeing him standing on the window sill with the outside unit, in the hot afternoon sun, music playing on his phone, got me nervous.

He got back down and proclaimed "madam, the compressor is gone, it would cost 15 k, and the AC is old, so best to a new AC"

Seemed simple enough, I was happy I atleast knew what needed to be done.

Yesterday Diksha and I went to buy, and I was in for a shock when I saw that the AC I wanted (same specs as the one I have) cost 72 K. I wasn't prepared for that. No instant buying at those rates. 

On the way out of the store, I saw these nice looking coolers.....a good sales guy, and within ten minutes I had bought a cooler, for 10K. 

I didn't want a cooler. I didn't like the idea of a cooler sitting in the middle of my drawing room, the effort of filling in water everyday, and definitely not a cable running across the room. But all this slowly came to mind as we were driving back home and I'm telling Diksha about all my second thoughts and saying "I think I made a wrong decision".

As I tell her, she says "maybe you shouldn't get it.... should I turn back ma, tell quickly before the signal changes". 

Back we went and cancelled the purchase.

The thinking went  "what happened to getting a second opinion.. what if that AC guy was wrong... instead of 10 K on a cooler, why not 15 on a new compressor". 

Called LG customer care, and within six hours Walid was at home checking the AC......said the capacitor had burnt out, and it would cost Rs. 850.

And that's what it was. Just Rs.850, and it's working brilliantly now.

Walid came as my angel in need.

A bigger take away.....it's not just for our health issues that we need second opinions, it's for anything that goes wrong. Decisions can go wrong, the repair guys ......as well as ours.

Space for thought matters..... perspectives matter.....second opinions matter.  Lesson for sure.

The Moral Peril of Meritocracy

'An essay by David Brooks in the New York Times'

I say this with special fondness because it was a write up by David Brooks in NYT, all of ten years back, that kind of changed the trajectory of my life.

This is an essay adapted from his forthcoming book, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life.”.  Here's excerpts:

"Many of the people I admire lead lives that have a two-mountain shape. They got out of school, began their career, started a family and identified the mountain they thought they were meant to climb — I’m going to be an entrepreneur, a doctor, a lawyer. They did the things society encourages us to do, like make a mark, become successful, buy a home, raise a family, pursue happiness.

People on the first mountain spend a lot of time on reputation management. They ask: What do people think of me? Where do I rank? 

These hustling years are also powerfully shaped by our individualistic and meritocratic culture. People operate under this assumption: I can make myself happy. If I achieve excellence, lose more weight, follow this self-improvement technique, fulfillment will follow.

But in the lives of the people I’m talking about — the ones I really admire — something happened that interrupted the linear existence they had imagined for themselves. Something happened that exposed the problem with living according to individualistic, meritocratic values.

Some of them achieved success and found it unsatisfying. They figured there must be more to life, some higher purpose. Others failed. Yet another group of people got hit sideways by something that wasn’t part of the original plan. They lost their job, faced tragedy or endured some scandal. These tragedies made the first-mountain victories seem, well, not so important.

Life had thrown them into the valley, as it throws most of us into the valley at one point or another. They were suffering and adrift.

Some people are broken by this kind of pain and grief. They seem to get smaller and more afraid, and never recover. They get angry, resentful and tribal.

But other people are broken open. 

The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that suffering upends the normal patterns of life and reminds you that you are not who you thought you were. The basement of your soul is much deeper than you knew. Some people look into the hidden depths of themselves and they realize that success won’t fill those spaces. Only a spiritual life and unconditional love from family and friends will do. 

They realize how lucky they are. They are down in the valley, but their health is O.K.; they’re not financially destroyed; they’re about to be dragged on an adventure that will leave them transformed.

They realize that while our educational system generally prepares us for climbing this or that mountain, your life is actually defined by how you make use of your moment of greatest adversity.

So how does moral renewal happen? How do you move from a life based on bad values to a life based on better ones?

First, there has to be a period of solitude, in the wilderness, where self-reflection can occur.

“What happens when a ‘gifted child’ finds himself in a wilderness where he’s stripped away of any way of proving his worth?”  What happens where there is no audience, nothing he can achieve? He crumbles. The ego dissolves. “Only then is he able to be loved.”

That’s the key point here. The self-centered voice of the ego has to be quieted before a person is capable of freely giving and receiving love.

Then there is contact with the heart and soul — through prayer, meditation, writing, whatever it is that puts you in contact with your deepest desires.

“In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us,” Annie Dillard writes“. But if you ride these monsters deeper down, if you drop with them farther over the world’s rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power for evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other.”

In the wilderness the desire for esteem is stripped away and bigger desires are made visible: the desires of the heart (to live in loving connection with others) and the desires of the soul (the yearning to serve some transcendent ideal and to be sanctified by that service).

When people are broken open in this way, they are more sensitive to the pains and joys of the world. They realize: Oh, that first mountain wasn’t my mountain. I am ready for a larger journey."

Kiran, thanks much for sharing. If I remember right, even that first article of ten years back was shared by you.... thanks again for that as well.

Pinky Memsaab

My first full length Pakistani feature film, and it didn't disappoint.

I've always loved Pakistani serials, right back since TV times. There's a certain subtlety, depth and elegance about them that it just so appeals.

Pinky Memsaab, is a  story that revolves around a naive woman from Pakistan, moving to Dubai as housemaid with an upmarket socialite, and how that relationship grows to alter the very texture and trajectory of both their lives.

Shazia Ali Khan explores the dynamics and complexities of human relationships in the context of the life of expats life in Dubai, the glitz and glamour of the upmarket life and how it intertwines with the deeper human emotions that have a will of their own.

Sensitive and incisive direction, coupled with brilliant acting by Hajra Yamin and Kiran Mallik, and the rest of the cast too, and the movie goes into my must watch bucket.

And thanks here to netflix. Not only did I love it, I even got my mom and dad to watch, and they both totally enjoyed it too :)

The Pit Stop

Belgaum became a lovely pit stop on our drive back from Goa.

Belgaum is Sujata's in laws place, and I'd visited her there over twenty years back, also on a road trip back from Goa.  And that was a long road trip as Ravi and I had done Hyd - Hampi - Goa - Belgaum - Hyd, and when roads were tougher and we had no gps, a whole different adventure.

I remember the chicken curry her mother in law had made, the reddest and spiciest chicken curries. It was so traditional....all of us sat on mats on the floor and got served the old way, and we'd eaten with our eyes and nose steaming, it was so yummm. She's sadly no more. Her brothers in law, Venkat and Deepak were still kids, in college kinds. To go back now....meet them with their wives, their kids and then reminiscence from back then was a lot of fun.

And not to speak of the authentic local cuisine they had for us for lunch, including the red chicken curry. Loved it.

There are a couple of anecdotes from the afternoon there that stayed with me:

One was Deepak recalling the number of letters that Sujata and I would write to each other. Sujata and I pretty much grew up together in Hyd....we got married within months of each other and while I was in Hyd, she moved to Belgaum. No cell phones and expensive long distance calls, so guess it was those letters that bridged that distance. And like Sujata recalled "inland letters kahaan bas hothe apneliye, pages aur pages likhthe the"

Another was a surprise from Venkat. He blew me with his knowledge and memory on songs. Any song, he'd know the movie, the actors, the sequence, the singers, the composers....anything about it. He said he used to be crazy about songs and still loves them. He'd even gotten selected in an antakshari program for TV.

We got him to sing for us.......he chose 'kahin door jab din dal jaaye.' . It was lovely. And the surprise element was that it was to Sujata's utter surprise, as she said she'd never heard him sing :).

That added a wonderful touch to the afternoon in Belgaum.

Some pictures:

A nice family picture. Sujata showing them her jet ski video. R to L is Deepak, Anu, Sujata, Smitha (not me), Tanisha and Venkat

Another more candid one

The last leg of our drive from Belgaum to Hubli. That's the new Vidhan Soudha.

It was getting dusk as we approached Hubli

A nice surprise. Ten minutes before I was to leave for my bus back to Hyd, Sujata takes out her collection of smaller acrylics and says "Smi, as a gesture of thanks, I want you to have one of these, pick any one". I was touched and wowed.

This is what I picked. I've liked this painting ever since she showed it to me a couple years ago....and who thought it would actually reach me. Sujata, thanks much, I love it, and it will go up on my wall soon.

And the trip itself Sujata....kya bole....it was just so wonderful and so special, one that will stay cherished for times to come. It was adventurous and enriching and fun, yet chilled out and present, in fact so much of everything that it's taken me all of twelve posts.

Just so so glad we did it and I can't believe you're already planning the next one to Amarnath...that sure is inspirational !!