Monday Musings 272 – Pick a hobby; Win the Nobel

Monday Musings 272  – Pick a hobby; Win the Nobel

A study by the University of Michigan as quoted in the book called ‘Originals’ by Adam Grant found out something so utterly bizarre, counter intuitive – and perhaps heresy to most middle class Indian parents; that your chances of winning a Nobel prize as a scientist become increasingly more if apart from the field of study you also dabble on the side with an artistic hobby. The odds become 2X greater if its music, its 7X greater if its Arts, 12X greater if its writing and a whooping 22X greater if it is Performing arts like an amateur actor or a magician.  Now who could have thought that!!

What should we pursue – the lifelong pursuit of only one craft or vocation and the desire of becoming a virtuoso or picking up alongside the core pursuit of our lives and dabble in a sundry interest here and there? The classical view on this one appears to be in the favor of the former; the latter are reviled tastefully under the burden of aphorisms like ‘a rolling stone gathers no moss’ – as if the whole point of being a stone is to gather moss! So should be pursue depth or breadth?

The debate on depth or breadth is akin to the coffee-toffee debate of yesteryears around the candy ‘melody’ – and most would stand for the stance which is closest to their own experience rather than a serious study of the subject; and would offer the jingle of the TVC as the answer to this depth vs. breadth conundrum – ‘’melody khao; khud jaan jao’.

There is also something called ‘Prison of prototypes’ – we process new information within the framework of what we already know. Hence the more width we have, even if it is not deep mastery, the more are the chances that we can process the new information and new perspectives. The question I am holding is whether our adult lives is spent heeding to the import of this nuance or do we perpetuate the dogma of ‘one life – one pursuit’? The emphasis is to carve out time for a deliberate expansion of experience to newer fields, however unrelated and however amateurish they might be in the beginning, not necessarily to gain anything material out of it, but just for the childlike joy of doing something new. The point to be made is that one never knows when and in what ways does this come to play a pivotal part in your current pursuit – and if this Michigan study is to be believed that more often than not it does increases your odds at succeeding in your core pursuit.  It is now a folklore for the Apple fans to quote Steve Jobs own admission that his passion for breathtaking product design was greatly influenced by a course in calligraphy that he had undertaken just on the side.

I am sure there is more to this that what is postulated – and we shall approach this basis our own intuitions and biases. Irrespective of our current stance – we must think about it and while we take some time to arrive at a definitive view, pick a small hobby on the side – to play an instrument or sing or write or perform. It just increases our bets to win a Nobel you see!!

Guru

Monday Musings 271 – The Orwellian dystopia

Monday Musings – The Orwellian dystopia

Good writing does not only inform and educate – it also indicates what do the winds augur. In a very uncanny way great literature is like crystal gazing – only far more complex. Sci fi writers also do the same thing but they occupy a different realm – of how science and technology will dramatically alter the processes of life and living. Rarely, if at all, do they talk about how will these inventions and advancements fundamentally alter the behaviour of people, the quality of relationships of individuals and groups, both within and across, and finally how will the polity at large change.  

Hence the other literature that tries to describe the ‘what can happen’ if the present fault lines continue to be under duress, becomes priceless and only too rare. Anyone who has an eye and stomach for such a literature must read the masterpiece ‘1984’ by George Orwell.

1984 was published in the late 1940’s and describes a polity which is excessively centralised, diabolically power hungry, and as it poignantly describes, power uncorrupted by the burden of having a higher purpose, but for power sake. Most critically it also describes the ones who want to exercise control over its people by controlling two fundamental things – ‘thoughts’ and ‘the past’.

One cannot help but notice how prescient the book was more than half a century ago – suffice it to say that one could have changed the title to ‘2016’ and it would be an accurate description of our times. I am sharing hereafter two critical themes from the book and leave it for you to admire the parallels – and should it tempt you to pick it up, do not resist it.  

The first is - He who controls the past controls the future. So an attempt is made by the powers to be, to obliterate all evidences of the past, particularly the alternative narrative. The past is continuously edited; newer versions of history is discovered and pedalled – which serves not only as a rationale for the current actions but also a source of its moral basis.  

The second is the concept of ‘thought-police’ – a system which keeps a tab on not only what you are doing but more importantly on what you are thinking. Even a mere thought which is independent of the popular/official narrative (or the narrative that the powers to be want you to believe) is treason. Thinking is no longer an independent act but a wayward force that must be controlled and an attempt to do so considered as defiance.

1984 is a frightening book as we read it today – I suspect if the world would have welcomed this great work as only a fantastic literature of its times or really a warning of the times we might inherit one day.

As a reader generally – and after reading this Orwellian masterpiece particularly, I have grown wary of all ‘history’ – whether of faiths, communities or nations. I am no longer sure if the ‘version’ I know is really how it was – or is just another version of truth. As Meryl Streep's character in the fantastic movie ‘Doubt, where she plays a nun in the church – a place where the currency of faith overrules all thought, says to the Bishop with anguish only a person of faith shaken to her core can experience – ‘Father, I have  Doubt’. 

I only have doubts now – or so it seems.  What makes my position so precarious is everyone around me is so absolutely sure.

Monday Musings 270 - Roots

Monday Musings 270 - Roots

Many years back I had read the famous and controversial in parts book ‘Roots’ by Alex Haley which traces the history of an African American to many generations back to the wilds of Africa. The book had left quite an impact on me – and I am told that it had had a similar impact on many others since the time it was first published in 1976.

I had started to wonder how it feels like going back to ones roots – particularly when it is way way back in time. I had wondered how Alex Haley would have felt when he would have gone back to the same tribe in Africa and realised that he came ‘here’. (I was not aware of some of the controversy about the historical authenticity of this pursuit then so it was easy to be carried away by the emotional whirlwind about such a thought)?

What makes us wonder about our roots? Do all of us wonder about it in the same measure or whether to some this possesses more than others? What makes some feel so differently about this question than others? Is it better not to be touched by this question in the realisation of the futility of this pursuit – for what conceivable material benefit will emerge out of it? What will it solve ultimately except may be an additional to the treasure trove of trivia that we carry with us all the time?

However to others it is an important search – it is the beginning of the formation of identity. The ties of place, kinship, family tree gives us the overarching shade of a shared past – some kind of a banyan tree which helps us to feel anchored. We do not float unanchored – we have something to hold on to – for whatever it is worth.

As I progressed through the book then I could not help asking myself if there was a latent desire in me to search for my roots – may not more than a century as Alex Haley had managed to do – but may be fifty or 70 years. I don’t know what I told myself then but there were parts of the book when the travails of ‘Kunta Kinte’ the lead protagonist so to speak became so overwhelming that it was difficult not to be choked. I could not identify what was so overwhelming in that tale that was touching me in such inexplicable way. In hind sight I can say that the seeds to search my roots were sowed. I had to go back to the place where it had all began. It took a decade for it to fall in place.

An hour back I returned from the place where possibly a century plus years ago the family tree could be traced back to. I met a small one room mud walled – no roof ruins approximately the size of 100 sq ft of what is left of it. I am trying to make sense of what it means for me now that I have been to such a place - exact place, where once life flourished and which is in ruins now - and which in a very philosophical way is a precursor to my being.

Increasingly we are living in places where we were not born and raised. I wonder if we will miss going back to whatever we call as our roots – may be not a 100 years; but may be where we were raised and have memories of. I wonder if it is worth dying anywhere else. As a young boy I saw the anguish of not being able to die his ancestral village in my grandfather and could not fathom that emotion of his. Today may be I am just beginning to understand that. May be all of us have a deep seated need to connect with our roots – whatever they are; and maybe we just don’t know it yet.

One begins to wonder – how many variables come together to ensure you are where you are. It could have so easily been something else.  

 Guru

Monday Musings 269 – As I wake up..

Monday Musings 269 – As I wake up..

I ask myself - what is the first emotion I feel as I wake up? As I open my eyes and the slumber wears off and I become aware of being alive, not yet becoming aware of where exactly I am opening my eyes but only the awareness that I am indeed still there – where the weight of my situation has yet not burdened my soul. What do I feel in that few uncorrupted seconds? Not what is on my mind or what I am thinking but how am I feeling?

Do I wake up with a feeling of some kind of heaviness? There is no real reason to feel this way for everything is fine but the dawn of wakefulness is heavy, like the child who enters a dark room in his own house – he is comforted by familiarity of the house and yet discomforted by the dark.

Do I wake up with a feeling of dull alarm that the body intuitively feels when it is in danger which is yet not corroborated by facts but is palpable in the bones so to speak? There is no reason to feel this way for everything is fine but the dawn of wakefulness comes with an inexplicable anxiety, like moving in a wilds, the jungle – comforted by our abilities to meander through and yet acutely aware that it is the wilds that we are passing through.

Do I wake up with a feeling of weightlessness, a feeling of no feeling at all? I become aware of everything, my body, my surroundings, my situations and I feel nothing. I am here and yet I am not here. I am levitating above and beyond almost making fun of the mundane. I am untouched and detached. Actually detached is not the right word - detachment is deliberate, a conscious attempt to severe attachment; this feeling is a stage deeper – as if I never had an anchor or ties or reasons. Like clouds.

Do I wake up with a feeling of unadulterated joy – as if I feel like dancing the moment I become aware that I am awake. There is no reason to feel this way but I am almost looking forward to getting up. There is a zing in my being that wants to give life a fresh shot. I surprise myself with this energy even as I am only becoming aware of being awake. It’s like the mountain spring which is hurtling down the slope, with no purpose but only still being purposive in its flow.

Do I wake up smiling? I am smiling as the first shimmer of wakefulness is emerging from the dark abyss of sleep. I have no reason to smile but I feel like smiling, there is some vague happiness that I know exists somewhere deep down, in the acute realisation that I have more than I need, in the comfort that I have more than what I thought I will ever have, in the thankfulness that I have more than what many others have. I wake up with gratitude although in this twilight of wakefulness and slumber I am not yet aware of the word ‘gratitude’ for this stage is beyond language – so I wake up smiling, for no apparent reason at all.

Do I wake up in a hurry, an abruptness that is so jerky that it shatters both – the calm of the sleep and the joy of getting up? I have noticed an egg hatching  and an cow giving birth to a calf as a kid in my village and I was always intrigued about the ‘slowness and the gradualness’ of the process. There was no abruptness to it. Abruptness  kills. Young children wake up gradually, adults wake up abruptly. It is a fait accompli or can something be done about it?

I am becoming more and more aware of how I feel in that fleeting moment, where sleep dissolves and a young day of wakefulness is born.

Monday Musings 268 -Kabeer in Lunyakhedi

Monday Musings 268 -Kabeer in Lunyakhedi

Around a 100 kms from Indore is Lunyakhedi, a village made famous by perhaps its most accomplished son, Padmshree Prahlad Singh Tippania.  Lunyakhedi is the epicentre of what can be safely called the ‘Kabeer belt’ of India – the culturally rich malva region of central India. Prahladji is a very well known folk singer of national and international repute who sings Kabeer in the quintessentially Malva style, with a tamboora in one hand and manjeera in the other.

There are more ‘fragile stickers’ that the airlines paste on his dholak cover than would be scratches on it, which indicates that the extent he has taken the sound of Kabeer through his singing.  A humble school teacher who breaks into the maalvi dialect more often than not, lives Kabeer even as the world perceives him to be only singing him, is an absolute delight to watch, meet and talk to. He is child when he cracks up, a philosopher when he makes a point and a saint when his fingers caress the tamboora.

Every year this time around he hosts a few people in his village for 5 days of singing and talking Kabeer – a kind of workshop if you may call it. This year I was a part of those lucky few. My comrades were a picture in contrast – A few classical music aficionados, a music band lead vocalist, a few Corporate types, a mother with a kid, a few school teachers, others with journeys best left un-described – all with Kabeer on their lips, mind and heart. I am not sure where these 5 days came from and where have they gone because they rest lightly on my memory, for I struggle to chose words to describe them fully and completely – and yet I know I did walk on those sands. I have the experience; I do not have the perfect expressions.

So what did we do for 5 days? Outwardly we sang Kabeer (for the record – others sang – I listened; me singing would have been a disruption!), discussed what he said and what he meant and what it means now; However inwardly I think each one of us were in our own journey. Simple questions – but big questions; Questions about meanings, meaningfulness and meaninglessness, about futility, about connections, about simplicity, about relatedness, about being wanting to be good but struggling with it, about going beyond symbols and connecting with the essence, questions about denials and projections, questions about the known and the unknown, about boundaries and liberation, questions that have answers and mostly questions that do not have easy answers. Everyone had his own personal tryst with the questions of their lives – and may be for a moment through Kabeer they also figured out the futility of questions. Being was more important than becoming!

We must know Kabeer more deeply than we know him today. Kabeer is the voice of sanity during the times of tumult; he is also the voice of revolt in the times of utter ludicrity; He is the voice of masses during the times of shameless elitist dominance; Kabeer is the voice of simplicity when it paid to be pedantic. Kabeer is the voice of reprimand during the times of nauseous politeness and he is the voice of connection during the times of vitriolic intolerance.  

Most discover Kabeer on their own and out of fortunate serendipity. People like Prahladji have done more to reclaim and rediscover Kabeer than institutions that were supposed to do that job – but then that has been the story of Kabeer even when he was alive – institutions always failed him; he was a darling of the masses then as he is now.

I don’t know what exactly we brought back from those 5 blissful days in that world – maybe we left a part of us back there and maybe we brought back a bit of Lunyakhedi with us. My love for Kabeer has only entered a new level and the love of Lunyakhedi has only begun. It will be difficult not to go back there soon.

Guru

PS: Having authored a book based on Kabeer's writings I had begun to imagine I know a bit of Kabeer. This ego was punctured in the first few hours only at Lunyakhedi. Kabeer continues to punctures egos even today. You rock buddy!!

 

 

 

Monday Musings 267: The many shades of Rains

Monday Musings 267: The many shades of Rains

I write this facing my balcony and gazing at the haze caused by heavy downpour that is so characteristic of Mumbai. The overcast skies have open up like they have some kind of mandate to accomplish. Rains arguably are the best season of all. Most of the reasons that make rains enchanting are the sentimental kind, a kind of mush that one associates with the matters of the heart. (What the heck, even cubiclewallahs had a past, didn’t they?)

Adults hate rains mostly, unless you are a farmer – and I suspect if any of the reader of this post has a job description that has farming even the footnotes. The same adults used to enjoy rains as kids. There is no better joy than poodle crushing, something that can safely be assumed as a precursor to candy crush. The jump from one poodle to the next, unmindful of the soiling clothes and wet shoes, was an unparalleled joy. It was breaking free from the rhythm of the mundane, a rebellion against the chastity of routine and cleanliness. Most kids developed mysterious naval ambitions during rains – the paper boats which would glide through the small trail through the neighbourhood. I bemoan my kids missing this simple joy – the price of vertical condominiums. May be they will find something else to miss when they grow up.

Getting drenched meant different things as a kid and in youth. Returning home with not a follicle dry meant welcomed by an overzealous mom to reprimand camouflaged with dramatised concern. It would usually be followed by special treatment of hot tea and snacks. Untimely spicy snacking was the best thing about rains as a kid. Is the space of enjoying getting drenched shrinking? Everyone seems to be too scared of the kids falling sick. I have long ago come to the conclusion that the instinct to protect from harm has done more damage to our loved ones than our carelessness – but that has got nothing to do with rains.

The youth associates with rains in a more romanticised ways. There is some or the other association with rains that makes a gaping hole in their heart. Rains have a melancholy about it – youth experiences this ache freely and openly. Adults are too dead and busy anyway. They are busy protecting their leather shoes.

I believe most other seasons have nothing to give. They are prisoners of their character. Summer and winter cannot help but be what they are – oppressive. Spring is yet to decide whether it is summer or winter may be a mutant between the two. Autumn by design is forlorn, like a dejected lover. They hardly have anything to offer. All that happens in these seasons is despite them, not because of them. Rains are different. They are temperamentally givers. Rains carry bounties and they open up their hearts without favour and discrimination. They are like grandparents – large hearted, easygoing and always in the mood to give. Rains create conditions for life to flourish.

Guru

PS – so what do middle aged Punjabi men do when it rains? Well they look for their drinking glasses. Come to think of it, they do that even in summers, winters, autumn, spring or any other season. Why make an exception!!

Monday Musings 266: Even if Trump gets trumped!

Monday Musings 266:  Even if Trump gets trumped!

The recent issue of ‘The Economist’ says something very interesting about the possible nomination of Donald Trump (the issue went to press before he actually was nominated by the republicans). In summary the article argues that irrespective of whether Trump wins this November or not (and most likely he won’t), the American discourse in general and the Republican discourse in particular will no longer be the same for a very long time to come. They trace back this phenomena to the last century or more to a list of stray insurgents who appeared on the political scene of America from the 1800’s till date, who said dramatically idiotic things for those times, contested elections, lost gloriously and handsomely but even in their loss sowed seeds of the idea that they championed – which later on in some form or shape became mainstream, sometimes in a few years and sometimes in a few decades. Hence the conclusion, Trump may not really lose even he were indeed to lose the election.

The hypothesis appeals to me, even though Trump does not. (In fact I so enjoy the idea of someone like Trump in America – its sweet revenge; I am no longer particularly ashamed of my political class – even the USA has them!).  The hypothesis is this – that a radically new thought, which appears contrarian, bold, audacious, even stupid or taboo when postulated for the first time, summarily rejected by the electorate for which it is postulated for, may still be worth its while – for it may oen the door for at least a conversation to begin on the subject thereafter.

This hypothesis is sufficiently proven in the realm of ideas (imagine someone proposing a telephone or internet for the first time or say flying for the first time), or in the realm of social issues (imagine the backlash when someone would have proposed abolishing caste practices or Sati 200 years ago) or in the realm of inventions/technology.

I want to take a look at the hypothesis in the organisational context. A new practice, a new model, a new way of doing things, a new assumption, a new idea – which is radically different from the way things are, is met with characteristic grunts and disdain. Sometimes the idea gets shot down at the drawing table itself. It is these set of ideas that have not been accepted yet that are of intrigue to me.

What if we are proposers of an idea and in a brainstorming session it gets summarily rejected and comprehensively denounced? Even worse what if it is mocked? It appears that the authors of such ideas who are at the receiving end of such vitriol must take hope. History teaches us this. Even if the idea is rejected, it may have at least injected the idea in the canvass of discourse. The first time it may meet with disdain, the next time it will meet with rejection (at this stage you are considered worth opposing at least!), the chances are bright that the third time it will get with a ‘slot to debate’.  It is at this stage when one must take satisfaction that the idea has been given sufficient credibility – enough to merit a debate and opposition. The idea has received validation. Opposition is the highest form of engagement, perhaps more powerful and more fulfilling than agreement.

Voltaire had said, ‘No one can stop an idea whose time has come’. However what Voltaire perhaps failed to mention that before the time of an idea does come, there are multiple people who must have talked about the idea amidst derision and mock. It is on the shoulders of those unsung heroes that the glory of future strongly sits.

A wise and very senior leader shared in a candid moment that many times he has had to stay with an idea for more than a few years and build comfort and consensus around it before it got accepted. It was an invaluable lesson.

So the next time I may lose an argument around an important, path breaking, radically new proposition, may be I shall argue again – and again.