The Present Moment

The present moment: It's all in the here and the now. It’s almost paradoxical how, this, is at once the simplest and the most complex. It’s simple because it’s a super sensible and rational concept. Every moment is the present, so can we focus all our energies on the here and now; no brainer, right? Complex because, by the very nature of our being…… existing in a framework of time, with full awareness of a beginning and an end, the present carries within it all the moments of the past and the need of the future.

When Ekhart Tolle says, I’ve spent a lot of time with great Zen masters….. all of them cats; he’s essentially talking of their ability to be in the present. And in that context he says there’s so much to learn from every flower or tree or animal. 

But then, the human is said to be the highest in the process of evolution; It takes a tree, a flower, a cat, thousands, no millions of lives to reach human. In the process what we've earned is a mind, a mind whose essence is to think, to reason…… so it’s the cat and the flower in terms of presence, but as human, its getting there and being there by choice. A present by choice.

Meditation is not about shutting off thought. It’s not just about quieting the mind. 

It’s about knowing yourself...getting to that heightened degree of self awareness, from the within and the without.

It’s not for nothing that people call it ‘the monkey mind’. There’s so much chatter there, so much drama that arises out of the humdrum of life, from the baggage of the past and the want or fear of the future. It’s about quieting the unnecessary chatter.... getting to a quiet space.....a space which allows awareness.

                                               

Here Ekhart Tolle quotes a nice little story on ability to get rid of the chatter. 

When two ducks get into a fight, which never lasts long, they will separate and float off in opposite directions. Then each duck will flap its wings vigorously a few times, thus releasing the surplus energy that built up during the flight. After they flap their wings, they float on peacefully, as if nothing had ever happened.

If the duck had a human mind, it would keep the fight alive by thinking, by story making. This would probably be the duck's story: '" I don't believe what he just did. He thinks he owns this pond. He has no consideration for my private space. I'd better be careful around him going forward. I can never trust him again'. And on and on the mind spins its tales, still thinking and talking about it, for days, sometimes months and sometimes even years. As far as the body is concerned, the fight is still continuing, and the energy it generates in response to all those thoughts is emotion, which in turn generates more thinking. This becomes the emotional thinking of the ego. This is how humans live all the time. No situation or event is ever really finished. 

Our ducks lesson is this: Flap your wings......let go of the story....and return to the only place of power....... the present moment.

More from Bijapur

While Gol Gumbaaz stands out for its sheer size and acoustics, Bijapur also has some other really impressive monuments that tend to get overshadowed because of the uniqueness of Gol Gumbaaz, but which by themselves are also worth seeing.

Ibrahim Rouza

Ibrahim Rouza is the tomb of Adil Shah Ibrahim II, and is known as the Taj of the Deccan. It reminded me of the Spanish Mosque that we have in Hyderabad, one of my favorite structures in Hyd. It's just so neat in proportion and design, that its a treat to the eye.  In fact it is said to have been the inspiration for the Taj.

Uppali Buruz

This was a weird structure and caught attention more for its size and total lack of decoration which was so uncharacteristic of those times. Apparently a watch tower. After Gol Gumbaaz, there was no way I was climbing this one, though it looked fairly straightforward in comparison :)

Afzal Khan's wives cenotaph

Afzal Khan was the General in the Sultans army, and when he was to lead his army into battle against Chatrapati Shivaji, an astrologer had predicted that he would not return. So before he went, he killed all sixty of his wives and these are the tombs of some of his wives. The others have small graves spread over the area where the killing happened. Apparently one of his wives, Khatija Begum ran away to a nearby village, but he chased her there and pushed her into a well. The village is now called Khatijapur 

Fort Wall

Bijapur was an extremely well defended and powerful kingdom of the times. The fort wall ran around the entire city. In fact Adil Shah is the dynasty which is said to have destroyed Hampi of the Vijayanagar Empire.

Baara Khamaan

An intriguing and unfinished structure. There's one story that states that it was planned as a structure to overshadow the Gol Gumbaaz and Adil Shah had his son killed so it wouldn't be completed. 

Gagan Mahal

The ruins of a palace and auditorium of sorts. Story goes that it was built for Rambha, a srilankan dancer, who later became mistress of Adil Shah. It's grandeur can be felt in its sheer size, and it's also very picturesque with a moat running around it and a lake at the back.

Manjunath at the moat

He felt it would take a week to do justice to what Bijapur has to offer, and I tend to agree. There's so much more I didn't see...two days for sure.

                                              Tongas are still commonly used in Bijapur.

The Archeological Survey of India is doing a really good job at Bijapur. All the monuments are well protected with nicely maintained gardens around, and clean.

Manjunath, thanks a ton for taking me around to all these places. Without you, I'd likely have done only Gol Gumbaaz, and maybe even that only from the outside :)

Sujata's Works of Art

This is a painting done by a close friend, Sujatha, and has a place of prominence in my house. And there's almost no one who walks into my house who doesn't have a comment on it; and this inspite of my having some other real large paintings on my walls too. It competes with panache :)

A visit to her house at Hubli..... and a couple of paintings she'd done way back in college caught my attention.

Old school paintings, but I still love these for their level of detail, and beauty, but apparently I know little about art :)

She's been painting for a long while now, self taught, and with several exhibitions to her credit as well. From these paintings....... through to the one on my wall, clearly brings out her shift from realism to abstract, the fusion abstract, which is the acceptable art form of today. 

Apparently, abstract art came into existence with the invention of the camera, somewhere in the early nineteen hundreds. It's like cameras could capture realism so painting had to be about something internal to the artists mind and so came about abstract and it was initially totally abstract, like totally lacking a subject.

The newer trend  (thankfully for the likes of me)  have subjects. but in abstract form; its a fusion of realism and the abstract, like the ones she does now.

Here are some of her paintings:

That's a Radha Krishna theme. it's one of her hall mark styles,  and the style is now recognized as hers in some art circles.

This is an under water series she'd done

This is another version of Radha Krishna, the third one of which is the one at my place

I find the Buddha almost surreal.  

If anyone's interested in picking up her pieces or even wanting to get one done, let me know...... I'm happy to do my bit promoting her art. I've always thought her paintings had a natural depth. 

Proud of you Sujata Pawar !

Gol Gumbaaz

Bijapur has a lot to offer in terms of history, and in between meetings I was lucky enough to get a few hours to catch some of that.

Gol Gumbaaz

What was best is that, as guide, I had Manjunath, a youngster from Bijapur who has just joined Selco as intern. I guess he started with hesitation, not sure where my interest lay, but soon he was enthused enough to show me not just Gol Gumbaaz, but a lot more of Bijapur of which he was very proud. In fact, enthused enough to show me his school,  talk of his dreams......he was an under eighteen national level hockey player! Good stuff that....all in all, made for a super interesting afternoon.

Gol Gumbaaz, an amazing architectural feat;  the second largest unsupported dome in the world, after St.Peters Basalica in Rome, and said to be the structural triumph of Deccan architecture. Its the mausoleum of the Sultan of Bijapur, Mohammed Adil Shah, built in 1656. It's said to be one of the largest single chambers in the world and it's truly awe inspiring in simplicity and size.

Inside the dome - The Whispering Gallery

It's known for its amazing acoustics, where even the slightest sound is enhanced and carried through multiple echoes across what is called the Whispering Gallery. Like even the ticking of a watch can be heard on the opposite side of the dome.

I visited the place all of twenty four years back when for whatever reason there were no visitors at all, and it was just ravi, me and the guide and I remember being totally mesmerized by the echoes. Just to sidetrack, that was the day the Babri Masjid was demolished, and we were driving back from Goa to Hyderabad and had no clue, and when we reached Hyd we weren't allowed into the city as the city was under curfew.

Today the place was abuzz with tourists and there was so much screaming and echoes, that it felt like a banshee house. Gave it a haunted house feel which also added to the mysterious feel I guess, but would be good to experience it in silence.

It has these creepy narrow doors everywhere

Running through the mausoleum is a labyrinth with multiple entrances (more than twenty) at varying levels through the eight floors , all but two of which have been closed out now, as people would get lost in the labyrinth and because of the echoes there would be no way of finding them. Strange fantasies of the royal and rich.

Extremely scary corridor, as it's so narrow that only one person can pass and its a steep fall the other side

It offers  breathtaking views of the city

The staircase was a nightmare....eight floors of narrow, dark, twisted, steep and slippery steps. Each step was like two feet high I felt. My knees were trembling by the time I was done, and if it wasn't for Manjunath who kept was insistent I do it, I'd have given up I think.......  thanks there Manjunath...it was totally worth it.

The tomb contains the graves of Adil Shah, his two wives, his daughter, grandson and his mistress, Rambha,  That bit was a surprise, but his love story with her is legendary; the final one being that they were both in Gol Gumbaaz, and he asked her what she could do for him, and she said anything, and he asked if she'd jump, and she did.

All larger than life stuff, the dome, the acoustics, the labyrinth, the love story, the death, the mausoleum.

Trip to Hubli, Belgaum and Bijapur

A perspective altering, super eventful, locally flavored, crazy exhaustive three days. Starting even symbolically from the fact that, as I went to each of these places, I realize that all three names now stand changed, as of this year. They are Hubballi, Belagavi and Vijayapura. Talk of change all the way round :)

The 1600 kms of road covered

As I write, I’m hoping I’ll get the entire experience into separate buckets as I’m yet to stop getting flak for long posts .....one long post a while back, and I’m still hearing :).

First, the basic purpose of my trip; it’s a project I’m working on called The Entrepreneur Fund. A fund meant to identify, create and support micro enterprises in the under served segment. You'd think it's easy...I for sure did. But a quarter in, and I realized it’s way tougher than I thought..... so decided to get out there to get a feel from the ground. Nothing compares to being on the field to know and understand....first principles approach  :)

In this context I visited our branches at Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum, and Bijapur and it proved a fascinating learning experience, in more ways than one. Really interesting was how many innovative ideas the sales folk there were able to come up with on the spot, as I spoke to them. For flavor.... a) roadside salon kiosks- they said the barber needs to shut shop at dusk as the kiosks are not lit, and they even wanted the electric trimmers solarized as  the barber has to turn away people during power cuts   b) a school teacher who wants a solar projector to offer private tuitions in the evening c) ice cream bandis with solarized freezers for interior villages and so on. Fascinating stuff.

Some pics from the trip:

Our office at Dharwad

Our office at Belagavi

Khannavalli, our lunch place

Khanavalli's, a new term to me; they are these little lunch places which serve a standard Jowari roti , two baajis (vegetables), plus a katori (bowl) of rice and saar (like rasam). Wonderfully light and healthy. Some trivia: jowari rotis cannot be made with a belan (rolling pin), they are hand pressed, like playing a drum they said.

Stark and beautiful countryside there

Manually managed rail road crossings...a disappearing sight. 

It was sweet waiting for the train to pass with its loud and prolonged hoot through the crossing. 

Optimum usage huh?

Our Bijapur office

A pretty house in Bijapur

Prasanna Hegde, who accompanied me from Hubli to Bijapur

An interesting end.  I'm drop dead tired and it's late and I hear Prasanna say, 'do you want to have curd?  I'm like, I want tea...who eats curd on the highway? And he's like... no no, this is really well known in Kolar, its just very special, you must try it. 

I did.....it's set in black mud pots covered with newspaper....just plain yoghurt....subtle sweet, some amount of cream, very rustic, and it was truly heavenly. Loved it. Thanks Prasanna, for the trip, the really productive meeting with the Dharwad, Bijapur and Gulbarga branches and the Kolar curd experience !

The Power Law

This post is coming out of an interesting discussion with a friend. He is one of the most data based, process driven, goal oriented kind of guys I’ve ever known…….. pretty much the other end of the spectrum from me.  

Just to give some context on how the equation works; he walks into my house and says, ‘you have 72 pieces of articles in your house ( I’m like…. that must be, at one time, the most accurate and the most irrelevant piece of information I've heard about my house). Then we go to Lalbagh for a walk, and he goes, ‘this was started in year so and so, by so and so and has this many kinds of trees (and I’m like…… can we please just look at the trees, enjoy the beauty and the walk ). Back in Google days, we have this pact on effort at losing weight, and after two months, he’s with this fancy gadget and tells me, I walked 8645 steps today, and it translates to so many calories ( I fell off my chair laughing….I’m like, I understand and I do get attention to detail, but this I cannot do). That should give you a gist of how things go, and prepare you for what's to come :)

Back to yesterdays conversation: Half hour into the conversation and I find there’s a note book out and a graph taking shape……and this one fascinated me, as I could so easily see where it’s efficiency lay…..not in creating the best possible start up (which is what he’s working on) but a brilliant tool towards self awareness

Curve 1 is a bell curve - a curve on how performance, either at an individual level or at a team level falls into three buckets, the bottom 10% represented at the left, the top 10% at the right and the rest in between.

Curve 2 is the Paretos Principle - also known as the 80-20 rule that roughly states that 80% of the effect comes from 20% of the causes. Like 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your clients, 80% of your marks comes from 20% of your studying, the richest 20% own 80% of the wealth

Curve 3 is the Effort curve - Effort or investment is high at the beginning (of a project) and goes down as the project moves into success.

This graph here basically puts all three curves together…and then the magic happens

X axis... if you see, has a A, O and B. And B is the magic zone. Top 10% on performance, 80% on impact and lowest on effort.....a super efficiency zone.

There’s an ‘Ó’ which is the cushion area, a 'nonsense' place you come to, to enable sustainability of the B.

Lesson: B is the place to 'be'. (pun intended). Figure out what gets you there and keeps you there. Avoid anything that drags you down to A. Use O as buffer zone, but keeping it relevant to you.

And he’s like…..this is not about my start up. Can we live life like this? Can one keep things in the happy zone? Work.....Relationships....Life....anything?

I'd say a vociferous yes, definitely aspirable.........through self awareness and choice...... and I think this is a really good tool to plot which part of the graph your effort and impact are on. 

If there are questions Kiran........  please feel free to answer :)

First Principles Approach and The Tesla Power Wall (2015)

Elon Musk first caught my attention with his First Principles approach.

And today a friend sent me this video, saying ....relevant to you.

Here's the video and an earlier write up on the 'First Principles'. They're both very interesting, 

Before he was a world-changing entrepreneur, Elon Musk was on track to become a physicist - even starting an applied physics Ph.D. at Stanford University. 

But while he dropped out of the program after only a few days, the field left an impression on the billionaire-to-be. 

Perhaps most crucially, it trained him in "first principles thinking," a mode of inquiry that relentlessly pursues the foundations of a problem. 

"I think it's important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy," Musk said in an interview with Kevin Rose. 

"The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy," he said. "[With analogy] we are doing this because it's like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths ... and then reason up from there."

The first principles approach has deep roots.

Over 2,300 years ago, Aristotle said that a first principle is the "first basis from which a thing is known" and that pursuing first principles is the key to doing any sort of systemic inquiry - whether in philosophy, as he did, or in business, as Musk does.

While Musk admits that arguing from first principles "takes a lot more mental energy," you end up with novel, or even groundbreaking, results. 

The first principles method was crucial for the start of SpaceX. 

When Musk and his team were trying to estimate how much the first SpaceX rockets would cost, they could have just looked at the products on the market. But as the 99u blog points out, his team didn't settle for that analogy-based argument. Instead, they figured out what the necessary parts of a rocket are and then found out how much the raw materials of those parts would cost. 

The result was startling - SpaceX could build a rocket for about 2% of the typical price. 

So much for the conventional wisdom. 

In his interview with Rose, Musk provided another example: 

Someone could - and people do - say battery packs are really expensive and that's just the way they will always be because that's the way they have been in the past. They would say, "It's going to cost $600 / kilowatt-hour. It's not going to be much better than that in the future."

But first principles thinking will not heed the pundits' advice.

Instead, you start asking fundamental questions. Musk continues:

What are the material constituents of the batteries? What is the spot market value of the material constituents? It has carbon, nickel, aluminum, and some polymers for separation, and a steel can. Break that down on a materials basis, if we bought that on a London Metal Exchange, what would each of these things cost?

Oh jeez, it's $80 / kilowatt-hour. Clearly, you need to think of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into the shape of a battery cell, and you can have batteries that are much cheaper than anyone realizes.

The takeaway: With first principles thinking, you attack problems from a different angle, potentially making much better decisions. 

Guess I can't leave out Google when I'm talking first principle approach :)

It is also what Larry talks of in the book 'How Google Works'. A concept that gets thrown around Google is '"moon shot thinking'and he says....'It turns out most people haven't been educated in this kind of moon shot thinking. They tend to assume that things are impossible, rather than starting from real world physics and figuring out whats actually possible. It's why we've put so much energy into hiring independent thinkers at Google, and setting big goals. Because if you hire the right people, and have big enough dreams, you'll usually get there, and even if you fail, you'll probably learn something important'. 

And what's more, this, I think is what gets imbibed as attitude. I was talking to a friend the other day on hiring rates and attrition rates at Google; and she's like why would anyone quit the number one company in the world. And then I realized that the Google not just picks up risk takers, but also hones that very ability......to dream.... to get out of comfort zone..... to push those boundaries. Most people I know who've quit, have quit like that :)