I am proud of you!

I drive a scooter that is 11 years older than me. Its the Italian - Vespa 150 model. My dad bought it almost after 7 years from when it was born. He used it for 24 years and from the year 2002, I have been using it. I hate people (by people i especially mean car-drivers) who make me apply brakes of my scooter.

Day before yesterday, I was as usual late for my office and was driving at the maximum possible speed that the engine of my 34 year old scooter could support. A car was in front of me and as expected, I had to apply brakes. Instant reaction was of course yell at the driver. But for the first time, I felt proud of the car-driver. Not only that, I was surprised that I felt proud of one more person who was not the car-driver, a young boy waiting at a bus stand.

They were just another citymates of mine. So what was so special about them?

The driver applied the brakes because a blind man was crossing the road. Seeing that the young boy came running towards that man, caught hold of his hand and slowly made him cross the road.

Great job! I was proud of my citymates. We should do things just as we would like them to be done for us. If we can shout at a person driving madly when we are crossing the road, should we not slow down when someone else is crossing the road? How many of us do that? Do you do that? There are many such blind men in our cities, many old people who cross roads in heavy traffic, many women, many men and many more kids who do so. If you are doing what those two guys did, I am proud of you too!

The Sholay Effect!

Yesterday while coming back from Mumbai, I was a bit early at the station. I got into the train and found my berth. I started reading the book "Sholay, The Making of a Classic" by Anupama Chopra.

Soon I found myself surrounded by 4 policeman. The first one (I guess he was the boss) asked me, "Kahan jaa rahe ho?". I replied, "Ahmedabad". He then asked me, "Job kahan karte ho?". I replied, "Educational Initiatives".

I guess he was inquiring because of the red alert that was announced in the city a day or two ago. And on top of that, my beard and my moustache might have made me a potential cause of that alert.

But before that guy could ask any more questions, the second one just recognised the picture on the cover page of the book. He just exclaimed "Sholay!!!" And he grabbed the book from my hand. He stared at the picture (of Veeru sitting on top of Jay and playing the mouthorgan in the song Yeh Dosti) for a while. I thought he was reading the title of the book "Sholay, The Making of a Classic". But soon I realized that he wasn't. He asked me, "Sholay ki poori story release ho gai kya?" I replied, "Nahi, Sholay ki making par kitaab hai." He replied, "Ohh achcha…making of Sholay."

I was waiting for more questions to come from their side. But instead, I was shocked to see all four of them just gripped by that cover page photo. They returned me the book and just walked away.

That's what I would call, The Sholay Effect!

What does it mean to be shelterless?

It had just started to drizzle. But I didn’t want to cancel my plans. I wanted to go and meet him. So I waited. I finished my lunch. I could see the house next to ours clearly, without any rain drops hindering the view. I dumped my notepad, pen and my new book, 'A Fine Balance' into my jhola and left.

The clouds harbingered the arrival of thick rains. I took a shuttle auto and headed towards the railway station. It again started raining a little, but stopped in a while. By the time I reached the station, around 200 m away, the rains had begun. I requested the autowala to take me near the station. But he explained the inconvenience he might have to face if he took that route. I considered his plight and decided to move on my feet.

I was thrilled to see something that I had just heard of but never seen for myself. My skin could not sense any kind of sensation due to cold drops of rain. But my eyes could sense the vision of those drops falling around 100 m from where I was. Not to complicate it any more, I could see rain falling on the opposite side but not where I was.

As if that was not thrilling enough, I could see another view where rain had stopped falling on the opposite side, moved a bit farther and in few seconds, even my skin could sense it. I really enjoyed it.

I started walking towards the station, picking up speed at each single step, in the haste of escaping the rains, avoiding getting wet and reach a shelter as soon as possible. But soon I had to face the unavoidable situation. It just started pouring cats and dogs and I had to run to reach the nearest shelter, a small open stall with a blue plastic sheet on top.

I hardly managed to fit my slim body in the thin strip of space available to stand. I wasn’t alone. There was another boy standing at the other corner, who wanted to go to Manekchowk (I knew that because he shouted to call an auto) but had to fit himself in the thin strip just as me. The stall owner was busy covering the traveling bags so that they could get good shelter and not get wet.

We could not avoid rains for more than a minute. The owner finished his packing and shouted at the boy, calling him by a rude, offending word, asking him to get lost from HIS shelter. The boy ran away in a flash of a second. I knew that next it would be my turn. He went past me, murmuring something to the boy. He then asked me to go away.

I respected his space and moved out thinking what I would do if I was in his place. I could not think much as the rains were hitting hard on my skin. I soon reached the next stall, with a blue plastic sheet, a small dhaba. I wasn’t alone again, but was feeling secured. There were many more passers like me who were trying to protect their heads. The space was enough for us to fit breadthwise but not heightwise. I was secure in a sense but uncomfortable in a way. I had to bend my back so as to reduce my height by around 2 feet to fit in the approximately 4 feet high stall. I had to maintain that posture for around 5 to 10 minutes. The rain fell at the same rate, maintaining the number of drops hitting a given surface in a given time. The height attained by a drop after hitting the ground was high enough to say that the rains were hitting hard :).

After a while, the rain reduced its rate a bit and the owner announced that he wanted to reduce the mass per unit area. In short, he asked us to leave the space as soon as possible. I wished I was returning home, a place which I could say was my permanent shelter, a place I could stay for a time enough to live my entire life, a place I could head towards with the drops of rain drenching me completely. My feet had become dirty due to the dirt carried up by the bouncing rain drops. I didn’t know how to clean them. But I saw my fellow shelter-takers cleaning theirs by the water that fell from the top of the blue plastic sheet. I tried to imitate them :).

The rain hadn’t stopped. But I could not wait there for long. So I took a 30 second long sprint and reached the station which was less than 100 m away. I bought the ticket, found my train and took a window seat.

The thing that I had been constantly thinking about throughout this short trip was that how do shelterless people feel in such a situation. The answer I have right now is, I don’t know. But am sure I will find an answer to it.

Am on my way to meet him and its still raining…..

Rain, Rain, Rain Again.....

I started from Ahmedabad for the student interviews (Mumbai) in Gujarat Mail at 10 pm. The train reached Nadiad and had a long hault there due to rains. I went off to sleep. I got up in the morning at 6:30 and noticed that the train wasn't moving (I also noticed that i had a very sound sleep which i generally don't get in train as it keeps on shaking a lot). Thought that it might be some station. But then tried to look down through the window from the top berth (62!) and could see tracks on one side and water on the other.

I got down and went outside to check. Found that it was raining heavily. I asked one guy who was standing at the doors what place it was. He told me that the train was between Ankleshwar and Surat (200 kms from Ahmedabad and 300 kms far from Mumbai! Tab pata chala mujhe itni achchi neend kaise ayi thi raat ko!). Ho gaye student interviews! Called up few colleagues and finally cancelled the mumbai interviews.

The train was standing and enjoying rains in the midst of green fields. The fields around were swaying vigourously in the rains. The rains were falling diagonally because of the strong wind. Nothing could be seen till far except the rainwater, fields and few distant houses. It looked as if some town was nearby. The train was not moving because of the rains. It seemed that other trains had also stopped because not a single train crossed our train. I had already cancelled the Mumbai trip and I was getting down at Surat. But till the train moved, the only thing I could do was enjoy the rains. The rains slowed down and the whistle blew.

The train started moving slowly. The town looking distant neared. And the water that was seen in the fields started appearing on the tracks. A station was coming close. All the tracks were under water. By the time the train reached the station, half the wheels of the train were under water. The train was moving too slowly. It was looking a bit scary. After stopping for about 3 to 5 minutes, the train started again. It sailed through the waters and finally managed to reach a comparatively dry place. The road ahead seemed to be clear and so the train caught up speed and soon reached Surat.

Surat seemed to be comparatively quiet with rains falling intermittently. After a good night’s sleep and all the beautiful scary scenes, I got to reach my uncle’s place! But…I missed my camera!

MindSpark!

I know this is a bit old but thought of posting it.....

1^st October, 2006. I decided to go to the MindSpark Centre for two reasons – one was kids and the other, obviously, Apoorva. I was not aware nor informed what I was supposed to do over there. The only thing I was told, in fact asked, was if I could sell MindSpark to the parents. The answer was just what he might have expected from me – “NO!”

I went there thinking I would be spending 1-2 hours observing kids. I didn’t know it would end up longer, with me getting involved in it. I entered when the 3^rd session was almost 70% done. 7 kids were there and I started looking at the messed-up place around. Kids were trying to fold some paper and observe how it fell. I had no clue (Thanks Apoorva!) what the activity was or what they were doing. So I started asking the kids what they were doing. They explained me quite well that they were trying to find the reason why one of the folded strips of papers fell in a different way as compared to the other – different in the direction of rotation.

Initial 5-10 minutes were nothing but chaos. Kids appeared tired. And suddenly I heard a kid calling “Sir”. To my surprise, I found that I was the only Sir (;)) in that room as Apoorva had also gone out. I went to that girl. She was desperately trying to unravel the mystery. So I thought of helping her help solve the mystery for me too.

I started asking her questions and in turn got question from her. We were trying to formulate a theory and test it. She had 2 propellers (technical name for those folded strips of paper J) with her, each one of them folded in a different way, opposite to each other, and as a result they both fell rotating in opposite directions. We started by writing down points that were different between the two sets and came up with things like different coloured clips (holding the cut folds), different arrangements of the two clips (one horizontal and one vertical) and different ways in which the paper strips were folded. So our theory was ‘the two propellers rotated in opposite directions because something, of the 3 we had noted down, was different for the two’. We decided to test each and every factor.

I was just trying to play the role of a torch-bearer in a dark theatre. The one who had the ticket and was searching for the seat and see the movie was that kid.

I asked her what to do if we wanted to test if the colour of the clips affected rotation. She didn’t answer for a while. Perhaps, she was thinking about something. I sort of gave the answer “let’s try using two same-coloured clips”. The spontaneity with which she said “Yeah” indicated that she was probably thinking the same thing, but was just afraid to give such a simple stupid answer and maybe she was more happy to hear it from a fool like me. J So we tried the experiment with two same-coloured clips. But they still rotated in opposite directions.

So I asked, “What should we do now?” She said, “We should try to see if the arrangement of clips affected rotation.” We made both the clips hold papers in the same way (vertically) and then again tried observing rotation. But it didn’t matter. So we were left with only one option that needed testing before we could conclude anything.

We had observed that the folds of paper were different in the two sets and so I asked her what should we do to test it.

This time she gave an answer without waiting for me to give one. She said, “We should arrange the cut paper strips in both of them in such a way that the folds are same in both of them.” It was indeed the answer I wanted. This time, I think , she must have thought “Ye gadhe ko shayad nahi ayega. Mujhe hi batana padega.”

We folded the papers in the same way. But to prove myself, that this gadha was smarter than she must have thought, I purposely arranged the clips in different ways (one horizontally and the other vertically). We tried to observe them fall. Since they were folded in the same way, they both rotated in the same direction.

So I asked her whether we could conclude that it was the fold of paper that determines its direction of rotation.

To my surprise (I was really happy to get this surprise!) the 4^th grade kid proved that a gadha is a gadha however smart he is. J She said, “No. We cannot. We should not only have the folds same but also the clips in the same direction. Only then we can conclude that the fold of paper determines the direction of rotation.” This is what I think can be called a MindSpark!

And we repeated the experiment with the clips oriented in the same way and finally we established out theory.

I had never thought that something like this could also excite me on a Sunday afternoon except my sweet sleep.

Thanks Apoorva for not informing me about the activity nor about the way I had to conduct the activity. If I would have received those instructions/”training”, I would not have enjoyed it to the full extent I did.

Dharma Matibhya Udgritaha

No doubt V. V. Chopra took 5 years writing Eklavya. A movie that can be called good not because of its ear-friendly songs or beautiful locations, but because of a very key point being made. With various kinds of emotions like anger, jealousy, fear, loyalty and love being displayed, the story revolves around some eight characters.

The story starts with the guard of the Devigarh Palace, Eklavya, narrating to the prince of the kingdom, Eklavya, the story of Eklavya, the obedient student who at the order of his so-called considered guru, Dronacharya, didn’t even think once to cut his thumb. On hearing this story, the prince immediately responded that what the student Eklavya did was wrong. Whereas the guard believed that what he did was right as it was his duty as a student.

The movie tries to display two sets of people. One who firmly believes that their duty, which they have been assigned and which has been done and passed on from generations is their religion, their Dharma. Whereas the second set believes that Dharma Matibhya Udgritaha. Dharma is what appears correct to one’s conscience.

The first set is represented by the royal guard of the palace, Eklavya. His father had drowned saving life of his king. His previous nine generations had been doing the duty of protecting the palace and the king and hence he was assigned the same when his father died. At the orders of the former queen, he had to help the then queen Rani Suhasinidevi conceive a child, as the king was impotent. But he and the queen promised each other that it would remain a secret. They didn’t even want their children (the queen delivered twins – a boy and a girl) to come to know about it. This promise was taken as his Dharma and he followed it irrespective of his feeling for his children.

The second set was represented by the queen, Rani Suhasinidevi. She had promised the guard that the children would never come to know that the king was not their real father. However, when she became old and was about to die, she disclosed the secret not only to the king but also to her son. She also gave explanation to her son why she did that. She told him that Dharma according to her was that which is born out of one’s intelligence and what one’s self feels correct. She felt that his son should be aware who his real father was. And since his real father was getting old, he should even take care of him and be his support. However, she left the decision to his son, asking him to decide his own Dharma.

Both the sets of people pursue their emotions in a different way based on their stand about Dharma. The queen who is about to die, instead of covering her emotions for the father of her children, calls his name again and again in front of the king. This even turned out to be the reason for her death. On the other hand, the guard always tries to kill his feeling for his children. Even he feels happy when his daughter smiles and even he wants to hug his young son. This is clearly demonstrated in a beautiful dialogue – "Mann to mera bhi bahut karta hai unko gale lagaane ko. Par humein woh adhikaar kahan; sewak jo thehre."

However, when it comes to the prince to decide his Dharma, he decides to go as per his mother’s definition of Dharma. He promises that he will take care of his father, the guard. He does not even hesitate to kill his so-called father, the king, in order to perform his Dharma.

Finally when the guard comes to know about it, he, who strongly felt that his Dharma was to protect the king, decides to kill his own son. He tells him that what he did was wrong. But the prince explains him why he did that. He even tells him what his mother had told him about Dharma. But the prince, feeling guilty for having been the reason of an innocent man’s death, decides to shoot himself. It was at this point that a transition takes place in the guard’s self. He protects him and accepts that the queen was right.

A very deep and an important point have been put across by the means of this movie. Though it has tried to make it as clear as possible, it might not get conveyed to the mass who might have expected a longer, interesting story from the film.

Today's lesson...

Be like the flowing river,
Silent in the night.
Be not afraid of the dark.
If there are stars in the sky, reflect them back.
If there are clouds in the sky,
Remember, clouds, like the river, are water,
So, gladly reflect them too,
In your own tranquil depths.

Manuel Bandeira

Seeing the unseen!

15th January, 2007. It was around 6.45 pm. We had just heard Kate, a passionate social worker narrating her experiences with kids and life. Perhaps it ignited a spark in us, me and Nirupam, it shook our selves, asking whether we were also passionate to the same extent or not, whether the spirit in us to do things was dying, whether we were also passionate to the same extent or not.

We left office and I was just kicking my scooter so that I could drop him and go back home. I had just put the helmet over my skull when he started her topic. He said that Krain was a genius and her solutions worked. He had told us about his experience with a kid at Mindspark who used to detach from the group when he felt he was being ignored by the rest. She gave a solution to the problem and it worked. Her point was that kids should themselves take the responsibility of their learning. This left us with the question that why we didn’t get such ideas.

I admitted the reason I ran away from teaching was that I was afraid of not delivering the required to kids. I didn’t want my inability to communicate clearly be the reason for kids not learning which they should be. He asked me if that was the reason or was it a confidence issue. I was clear that it wasn’t a confidence issue. He added that even he sometimes failed to go along with kids. He didn’t have answers to situational problems arising and had to leave the problem unsolved.

The question that immediately came to us was “Are we enjoying what we are doing?” The answer was loud and clear “No”.

(Ab tak mera sar woh matke ke kaaran bhaari ho chuka tha and so I removed it. Ibdun was leaving and she just could not stop herself from asking “Office mein baat kam karte ho jo yahan khade khade kar rahe ho?”)

We both had a view that it was very important to enjoy our work. We remembered those days when we used to do analysis and each day our minds would remain constantly sparked. Why did that charge dry out? We didn’t know what had changed. The problem that was bothering us was, we were not enjoying our wok and hence we were not able to deliver which we were able to.

We had discussed some analysis ideas that day and we also had a meeting with Rana regarding that new project. Both those incidences pointed to the same thing. We were doing it for the sake of doing it. We had reasons why we thought so. Initially when we used to do analysis, we were always eager to see the result. But that day we left the discussion and didn’t even bother to execute it. Regarding discussion about that project, we felt we didn’t do it the way we should have done it. We took interest in answering questions about the execution part of the project which we thought we were not much interested in. We didn’t discuss points about the actual purpose of the project.

(It was high time we were talking in the parking lot. I desperately needed a cup of chai and so we went to Alalbhai’s kitli and had maska bun and chai.)

We smsd Rana asking if she found the discussion we had, meaningful. She called us and asked why we were asking that question. She said she found the points valuable and she had also framed a basic structure for the project. We didn’t know what to do. It was around 8.15 pm and I remembered a pending work I was supposed to complete ASAP. We left from the office but kept discussing the problem on the way.

We were standing at his apartment gate. We wanted a solution to our problem. We thought of talking to people about our dilemma. Since Darrish was on tour, we had no option but to wait till he came if we wanted to talk to him. Nirupam told me that he was not feeling confident as he had failed twice. In that case I suggested him to do what he was good at. I told him to take up random projects and complete them as he was good at doing that. So the question that came up then was “Are we afraid of taking responsibilities?” I told him that I was not feeling confident that the maths part had almost been given to me. This indicated that even I was running away from taking responsibility. He told me that he had learned from experience that in that case, instead of running away, we should ask for help whenever needed (which we had been avoiding till then).

Then came the turning point of this entire discussion. He told me he had started feeling that Darrish had lost confidence in him. I asked him how he knew that. He told me about the discussion they had and how on mentioning that he was not feeling confident about taking up tasks (as he had failed), he said that even he felt the same. I asked him if that was the reason why he had started avoiding certain things? He said he didn’t know. I told him how I felt once when Darrish took the analysis of that project into his hands in spite of knowing that some of us had already done the basic work. From that day I felt I was not good at analysis and so he didn’t allow me to work any further on it (in that project). That was also one of the reasons why I had stopped taking interest in analysis (though I always believed that it should be done). But I also felt that he had not done anything new. The project ended up with the same findings that we had come up with, but with more finely done analysis. Even we could have done it given the time and the opportunity. For us the deadline was a deadline and for him it wasn’t; it stretched till he was almost satisfied.

Both of us were silent for a while, we were thinking something, perhaps the same thing. I think we were relating those various incidences to each other and were trying to look for patterns there. The threads had started to untangle themselves and each cord was leading to the same root. Everything was getting clearer and clearer. There was a tricky smile on our face.

We both finally agreed that it wasn’t anything else but it was our ego that was coming in the way. We never knew when the egoists in us started controlling us. We never wanted that to happen. We decided to be conscious and warn ourselves whenever we felt the egoists were taking charge.

However, we were still left with the fundamental question we had started the discussion with, why were we not enjoying our work and what should we do so that we enjoyed it?

It was almost 9.30 pm. The 2.5 hrs’ discussion was really fruitful. We discovered the passive selves within us that were creating hassles in our day-to-day life. But at the end we were proud. Proud not for possessing such entities in us, but for being brave enough to confess that we had ego. We finally discovered the dogs within us!

But the next question was, “What next?” We had to solve the problem. I found the answer to this problem while reading the chapter ‘The Sixth Tuesday We Talk About Emotions” in ‘tuesdays with Morrie’ by Mitch Albom. The answer was Detachment. Here is a part of that text:

“I thought about how often this was needed in everyday life. How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don’t let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry. Or how we feel a surge of love for a partner but we don’t say anything because we’re frozen with the fear of what those words might do to the relationship.

Morrie’s approach was exactly the opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, “All right, it’s just fear, I don’t have to let it control me. I see it for what it is.”

Same for loneliness: you let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely-but eventually be able to say, “All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I’m not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I’m going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I’m going to experience them as well.”

“Detach,” Morrie said again.”

So what we needed was to consciously look for the moments when our egos tried to overtake us and once found, detach from it. We have already started practicing it. We hope to see the results soon!