One More Week

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The Blip moment…

Its difficult for Thanos and all the more difficult even for Ironman to do “The Snap”, but that moment came and they had to do it (second time for all the better reasons). And borrowing shamelessly from Jawaharlal Nehru – “A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to new, when an age ends…..”, I did snap the fingers today.

12 is a special number, something which has a name for itself. So a dozen years of kinship, a dozen years habits and a dozen years of bond you create with the surroundings, the people, the methods, the terminals, the madness, the slowness, the strolls around the courtyard, the banter over coffee, the sense of collective achievements, the agony of shared failures..its hard to forget. Its hard to say goodbye!

On 17th August 2009 I joined an organization I wasn’t really sure I would stay long. On 20th August 2021, I just wished I could stay long!

I have been doing Equity Research for a living close to 15 years now. I started loving the market and started admiring it (much like a Davy Jones- Calypso) only after 2013 (yes I take my time, and that has worked!). The catalyst was the people I was surrounded by. The information barrage, the enthusiasm about trying to gaze through the crystal ball – its hard not to get addicted! I have been oft asked in the beginning of my journey, to always find a good reason to get up from the bed and head for my seat every morning. After these 12 years, the haze is out and its crystal clear – its the people who mattered, the magnet which charged me up everyday.

The benefit of hindsight is that it helps you put all the pieces of the jig-saw puzzle in place. People have wondered about the seeming calmness on my exterior come hell or high water, but what only few know is the tantrum and the cooling down pep-talk that’s gone behind that. Yes I have always demanded which I felt was rightfully mine (the corporate lunch menu episode included), and have been fortunate enough to be in the company of people who believed in me and kept the lights on in the runway I was trying to land.

The last few months I have wondered what really prompted me to take this call, when things look so settled? To take a leaf out of my travel book, I have always pined more for the roaring sea vs. the calm mountains. Maybe the thirst for the next wave of unknown size and intensity is the catalyst? But guess that would be a post for another time.

When you buy a new Ferrari, you are cautious around the corners and don’t try to push it too hard too soon. Time to take her for a spin now!

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Introductions….

I say the biggest hurdle to begin a story is to start….or rather, from where to start?

This happens to all of us, and then we all fall back upon the same solution. Ever began a conversation with a stranger? Do you inadvertently ask her ..”So what do you do?”….really…why do you really need to know that? Does knowing that the person in front of you is a neuron-surgeon or a Chef is the first filter you need to switch on. Unless its a meet up by an accident, most social dos or in zoom-times like now, already acts as a first filter on whom you are meeting – 99% of time you both would be sharing the same socio-economic background, similar schooling, similar or related habits and drink the same poison.

So why do you need to know what I do….or do you really need to know?

Yes…..its important…since ages that’s how people start…from where you are coming and what you do…from a village 100 miles away….and you are a cobbler….that denotes your social status….and decides whether the enquirer wishes to mingle with you or not.

Times changed, we have moved ahead to a society where most of us are working ….without knowing in full the impact of our works. We stick to our designations provided by our firms as a shield to hide our own ignorance. A dear friend of mine began her conversation at a meeting with “I am DGM at xxx based out of xxx” and carried on. What struck me was that the story could have a better beginning. Knowing her and the impact that’s she is making..a very apt beginning could have been “I am responsible for the transition from a traditional to an IT enabled organization and also workplace safety for employees at my firm”. Does it make any difference….? You decide.

What made you write this story then?

Its the feeling that our propensity to stick on to this shield is also making us blind to discover who we are and what all different things we can do. I have heard sufficient stories of people finding it hard to move ahead in their professional lives after a certain period. Asset management industry is based on the disclaimer that past performance is no guarantee of future performance. So then why should our experience suddenly become a liability instead of an asset?

I believe its because we get fixated on the delivery part of our roles vs the impact. I have had the opportunity to mingle with several entrepreneurs over the last decade, and its a learning about how they look at their roles and how they introduce their life stories. The clear distinction of delivery/impact makes them stand out and has made me think differently as well. Never have I heard anyone introducing themselves as CEO/Founder of xxx..instead its always the impact that their organization is striving towards and what her role is in it.

Off late many of my close friends are leaving/left India in search of better opportunities and that is the catalyst for me today to burn the midnight oil. Why is it that a nation of 1.3bn not have opportunities for highly educated/qualified, driven, ambitious individuals. Does the fault lies in the industry which compartmentalizes everyone in the name of specialization or does it lies with us who confuse skills with deliveries and thus are not able realize their own potential?

Am confused now – should we strive for specialized skills or not?

The book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by Robert Epstein focuses on how Roger Federar didn’t strive for specialization in tennis till he was in his teens – in fact he was actively dissuaded from doing just that and played a myriad of sports indeed like skateboarding, swimming, ping pong, soccer, and badminton. This might be true for sports which anyhow should be impacting/creating only a limited number of careers. But for a larger audience like a college graduate, especially in coming days when the pace of technology will make retraining a near herculean task, over specialization may not be a desired trait at all. A bigger ask would be to understand someone’s core strength (say, analytical skill rather than Python/ R for eg.) and then try to utilize that in a specific business requirement. And yes, when you think you are ready, play out your introduction.

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Banking on them

In the year 2004, one of my friend was working for a marquee software house and was posted in the picturesque Lakshwadeep. He was working with a large national bank of India, implementing the software solutions recently bought by the bank at branch levels. Boy did we envy him for his paid holiday! As we all partied hard in Bangalore on X-mas eve, the poor soul cursed us wide and between (no party place on the island he was in) and went to sleep early, with a bottle of Old Monk as his companion. As we kept on sleeping the next morning, the boy was woken up by a strange feeling of being wet all over (don’t imagine too much). The great Indian Ocean tsunami had just hit with its full might on the shores of eastern India, with the residue crossing over to the western shores albeit a much tamer form of herself. Clutching onto the desktop and running upstairs (the bank itself was his homestay during the duration of the project) he tried to salvage as much equipment as possible. Shortly the branch manager arrived to help him, followed by the residents of the lower regions. Slowly the bank turned into the makeshift shelter home for close to 20-30 odd people (might even be the full population) as being one of the better built places people were literally banking upon it for their survival.

Why am I reminded of this after 14 years?

I had to visit a branch of one of the bigger PSU banks off late, and it was a sight to behold. The employees were housed behind a wall of transparent plastic sheet, only 5 people were allowed at any point of time inside the branch. People were looking weary of even picking up the paper forms. The air smelt more like hospital with frequent sprays of sanitizers. No sharing of pens, no helping out the confused senior citizen uncle, no interaction with any fellow being around. This was a scene out of some dystopian movies.

In the middle of this scene I was left impressed by the tenacity of the employees of the bank (it was an all women branch btw),deftly handling queries as small as how to update the passbook, making bank drafts to KYC updates (for which we had to make the personal visit, which I still believe can be an entirely online process). The ~400 sq ft room with minimal ventilation is definitely not a place someone in our coterie would sign up for to work 9-5 in today’s environment. Yet there are people serving basic needs of the population en large who are either on the other side of the digital divide or not as fortunate like us to afford WFH neo normals.

I know… bank branches are for history buffs, right?

Why do we really need a bank branch in today’s networked world (to do a swift scam…no puns!). Jokes apart, I have been told how branch managers are made to sit in loan meetings on complex infrastructure project lendings, requiring highly specialized technical knowledge. They are suppose to understand the project intricacies (which industry veterans have learned over decades) and take calls on thousands of crores of lending decisions. And when these loans go bad there is no accountability..as the person who approved the project has moved on after 3 years. Makes sense, and maybe there is a need to look at how private lenders are handling it for the best practices, but when it comes to financial inclusion of the under served or equal opportunity employment (PSU Indian banks are pioneer on this front), there is no alternative to the branch banking model. The unit economics might not make sense but the social benefit (and thus the possible dividends down a generation) are immense.

But why am I thinking of those women behind the plastic veil on a cold Sunday night?

Don’t go by the cover, am not turning my back to my fav fish chickens and mutton any time soon, avian flu is just a seasonal discount nickname. I picked this book up during a short flight back home in Dec but there was something in it which made sense to me. This book lays a lot of emphasis on one word – gratitude. It makes case that its not happy people who are grateful but grateful people who are happy. Counting our blessings is an arithmetic exercise which we tend to avoid, for the immediate pleasure of cursing our neighbours (its like AM Radio vs Netflix). If there’s one resolution in 2021 that I would like to keep (am not a fan of resolutions though, they simply tend to roll over into perpetuity taking derivative forms!), is to be more grateful – for everything and something. This is to those brave women sitting in that branch day in and out and doing their duty.

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Is it 4…or 6?

Nopes, I am not talking about cricket over here (I can hear the huge sigh of relief from all those who know that I am more concerned about the namesake insect than the sport here). What intrigued me to pen (or key) my thoughts today is my son’s online class. They were being taught about seasons and I heard them saying “there are 4 seasons”, and I was like…what? Last time I checked I was in Gurgaon, India. And I do vividly remember even last year we had 6 seasons change over the course of 12 months. I did a quick check with some other friends having kids of similar age, but in different schools, and the answer was same, there are 4 seasons!

Why is it such a big deal!

Heard this song? This is from a top rated series currently on amazon prime, called Bandish Bandits. More than the storyline, its the songs which are plain amazing and a treat to (h)ear. The song am referring to “Rituraaj” – the king of seasons..and my personal favourite, the rainy season (my first post happens to be lamenting on the same). Its a shame if my child is stolen of the realities of the country he’s born into and made to rote something which is clearly off realities. Its true though that the medium of instruction cannot do justice to the fact of the richness of our climates. Grishsho (Summer),

6 seasons as we have it (Top L-R) Summer, Rainy, Early Autumn (Bottom L-R) Late Autumn, Winter, Spring

Borsha (Rains), Shorot (early autumn), Hemonto (late autumn), Shishir/Sheet (Winter) and Bosonto (spring) (Greeshm/ Varsha/ Sharad/ Hemant/ Shishir/ Vasant). A huge amount of our cultural heritage, be it literature, fine arts, sculpture or architecture is nothing but the manifestation or glorification of climate and its impact on us. You miss a season, and you are missing a whole link to the cycle here.

But its just a season…why fret!

Born and brought up in bengal and having spent a considerable time in states like Kerala and Karnataka during my initial days of professional (and wanderlust )life, the one thing which struck me most when landed up in Delhi-NCR was rains…or rather..the lack of it! My father once famously mentioned that the thing you call rain here would not even wet a paper towel back home. Having said that, must admit, that in past couple of years, we did witness torrential rains (and its impact on the ill-prepared municipal systems). This year specifically we have seen rains linger on for a longer duration of the year, and with greater volumes when it does. Our coastal regions bore the brunt of some of the fiercest cyclones in recorded history. As per several reports, the largest deltas in the world, the Sunderbans which act as a heat sink and natural barrier to cyclones have depleted by~50%. December 2019 was one of the coldest ones that I can remember. Climate change is no longer a theory in some obscure report, we are now part of the unfolding tragedy.

Peter Drucker has once famously mentioned “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. Taking it a bit further, if you are not teaching the kids the exact nature of your local climate, how can you sensitize them about the changes that’s happening around and to take corrective actions in their future? A lot of us these days are focusing on imparting “employability skills” to our kids early on (coding, robotics, olympiads..list just gets bigger), but what about life and survival skills? BTW, a major chunk of new age jobs are heat generators while we keep on depleting the heat sinks of the world. IMHO, this earnest cry for help from Bhutan should be played on all movie theaters along with the national anthem. Am I sounding too dystopian? When news like the collage below stop being sunday columns on page 7 of the weekender and end up on weekday pages of your daily newspaper, you know the water is now flowing above your head (sic.)

So? What do we do?

Its one thing to get inspiration on course curriculum from an International point of view, but blindly following it without taking into consideration the local variations and realities will only create confused individuals (especially in an age when kids consider a school teacher to know it all and parents are just…you know..impossible parents!).

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A walk down…

That’s how the day began for us….we climbed down from our tower for a simple walk inside our society. And how refreshing it was ..the little one saw the grass field after 23rd March for the first time and had a blast running inside the empty field. Simple joys of life and it feels so precious all of a sudden! So I decided to celebrate the few best things/experiences I came to savour over the past week, things we tend to take for granted, or may have been too busy to realise the importance of.

The Band of Brothers

In 2004 I met a group of boys in the luxury resort of Infosys Mysore campus, and we refused to grow up (or apart) ever since :). I have no qualms in admitting that this is perhaps the ONLY WhatsApp group with which I am most attached. We are continents apart, but this lock down gave us a chance to virtually meet up and do what boys do best (use your imagination).

The Best Man

I realized that we underestimate the strengths and overestimate the desires of our kids. When the lock down descended upon us, of all things, we were much worried about how our son of 6 years will cope…with limited choice of his favourite junks, no physical sports, no friends around, no travel..and to top it all…no birthday party (which we promised to him much in advance, the last 3 ones being small homely affairs). But the boy showed that at the end of the day, all that he cared for was his parents around and a little more of our time. On days when both the adults are at the end of our wits juggling chores and WFH – all it takes is a look at the way he is keeping himself happy – playing, reading, painting, farming and generally keeping himself occupied – all alone, and in the confines of our home. The only fair demand he makes is that we give him undivided attention post 6PM on weekdays – which is more than a fair ask!

The Best Story

If you were looking forward to some indomitable spirit to take you through this times, look no further! This is perhaps the best real life story I came across in a while, and goes on to prove my belief why I think we will come out stronger. All it takes is determination..and not strength or wealth. The story is also a morning star of hope in the inherent kindness and positivity that’s prevalent all around us – its just that we chose not to look for them. P.S. I am already planning to go visit my parents who are locked out in West Bengal and take the GT Road trip after I read this today morning.

The Best Show

We are watching Panchayat which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Apart from the fact that its (till now) something you can watch with a kid around without bothering much about content category, what also got us hooked to it was the simple storyline which extols the simple country life. A plot which revolves around the bonding between strangers in places and where even politicians are more humane than caricatures is such a whiff of fresh air in the current ages – where most content survives on needless blood and gore and flesh to titillate and not satiate. Must watch!

And finally..the Iron pillar around me!

To the only one who keeps on telling me “you are as old as your back”, the one person who never gave up on pushing me towards “Yoga” (must admit I hated it initially as a sissy thing). This lock down finally managed to knock down this barrier inside my head, and I must admit – its not easy folks! I am grateful to have such a patient and expert teacher in you and hopefully will have a stronger spine (literally) by the end of the lock down–thanks Anjali Sharma 🙂

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The day my nation paused

Life in the times of social distancing (shot on my Nikon D7000)

I had written in January 2020 about my experience with solitude in the Andamans and the humbling feelings of confinement when I stepped inside the cellular jail. And here I am, sitting in March 2020, inside my apartment for 11th day and counting, with the world literally coming to a standstill due to the fear of Covid19. But amidst the constant bombardment of doomsday messages across all media, a strange feeling of “this shall pass too” acts as power shield around me. And I believe I have only my brush with the hard past at the beginning of the year to thank for this.

Recency effect clouding logic and sanity is perhaps the biggest malaise that world is currently going through. As a species we have a >200,000 years of existential history, and all far that we can go back in memory to compare our current precarious situation is 1918 Spanish Flu era. That’s a sample size of 0.05% and is statistically bound to give you an error margin of (+/-)10% for your analysis. I will definitely not sit in an analytical spacecraft which has that amount of variance when I am targeting to return to earth/sanity.

I am a self-confessed movie buff, and cannot help myself to quote something from “Pearl Harbor”. Jon Voight’s character of President Roosevelt is heard saying “But when I see defeat in the eyes of my countrymen, in your eyes right now, I start to think that maybe He brought me down for times like these when we all need to be reminded who we truly are, that we will not give up or give in.” In the movie the Americans go and plan a daring bombing mission on Japan and turn the tide in favor of the Americans. Am quoting this as most of my WhatsApp groups have overnight transformed into intergalactic news channels ferrying trainloads of doomsday statistics and “flattening the curve” has become international obsession. I have been labelled as a cynic for most of my adult life and true to it, I decide to turn a cynic on the flood of pessimism.

One sometimes finds, what one is not looking for
— Alexander Fleming^[13]

Human kind has been fighting a long battle against influenza virus, and must admit the fight has been a long drawn one. But what we tend to forget are the numerous fruits this war has borne us. In the year 1928, Sir Alexander Fleming was experimenting with influenza virus in the Laboratory of the Inoculation Department at St. Mary’s Hospital in London.Often described as a careless lab technician, Fleming returned from a two-week vacation to find that a mold had developed on an accidentally contaminated staphylococcus culture plate. And voila, humankind discovered penicillin, world’s first antibiotic- ending up saving millions of lives and completely changing the course of medical history. The impact of this lifesaver is felt none less than when Winston Churchill and his wife, on hearing his longtime secretary Elizabeth Layton’s marriage plans, asked her to have 4 kids – “One for Mother, one for Father, one for Accidents, one for Increase”.

So what’s giving me hope in these times?

To see the transformation of the so called island-multi-storied societies of modern day cities into quasi villages – in a classic Bharat meets India style. Our RWAs have taken over the roles of the age-old Panchayats as residents look upto them ever more hopefully for guidance and resolutions in these testing times. While we practice social distancing, we now know more neighbors and are coming closer as a community like never before. On a lighter note, if this lockdown persists we might see local barter economies, as in old villages, springing up as a necessity.

Hope flows when we crave to talk to our neighbors – over balcony chai sessions, despite the flood of OTT platforms streaming in our living rooms. Hope visits our doorsteps in the form of innumerable invisibles – home delivery people, Country delight milkman, the neighborhood grocer Vimal, the Get Well Pharmacy person, our security guards – as we all cower inside under the pall of the invisible virus, the indomitable spirit of these foot soldiers are our strength – and path to resurrection.

Most of us who flood the internet – journalists, researchers, analysts, bankers, cheap thrill seekers and are both the producers and consumers of the digital era information world are really too young to know the hardships the world has regularly seen ever since its existence – and recovered. The 3 Ps guiding me right now is Plan carefully, Prepare meticulously, but Panic less.

One size (doesn’t) fit all

I was searching for a mobile phone for my MIL. She is a petite woman with real delicate hands, like a small kid :). Her current iphone SE has served her well over the years but is slowly reaching the point of no return. So we started the seemingly simple task of shortlisting a suitable(read : small) device for her. And the adventure began.

Seemingly Amazon doesn’t have a filter on screen size…flipkart has so, but then there are way too many filters available….and choices makes the decision tree even more complicated. But aloha! There’s no smart phone (other than the new gen iphone SE, but its camera is…..well..) which has a screen size less than 6″. Phablet was a term which was in vogue some 2 years back…nowadays its gone from the dictionary as 6″+ is the norm. I was feeling like a chap who went to look for a bachelor pod in the market where only 3bhk+study was being sold.

Where is the design thinking?

Long time back, while studying Operations Research, we were taught about design thinking. Henry Ford famously mentioned “I don’t mind which colour of car you buy as long as its black”. I felt like today’s manufacturers are still following a 1920s formula. Assembly lines are costly, so choose what big data is throwing out as most sold units and build them. But actually what are we relying on? Is there a way to determine a desire which is deeply embedded in someone’s psyche through a like/buy button? In the AI/Big data driven world, are we just…a couple of hundreds of like button there, few more couple of hundreds of buy hits here…and that’s it!! You have my digital clone who can apparently preempt all my future moves.

Back in 2012 during a session of mindless scrolling of my facebook wall I realised that all that I am doing was to gorge on other people’s thoughts(leave aside whether its +ve or -ve, or hate or partisan), and deep down there I am drowning. My own self is not out there any more. That moment of dawn made me delete my facebook profile and have never felt so liberated ever since.

So big data social media is bad??

Not trying to say that, we do get to hear occasional instances of usage of social media in solving real world problems, like finding lost children, grabbing attention of authorities on matters requiring immediate intervention etc…but as one very good friend oft use to say …exceptions prove the rule. What we need to understand that behind those mindless scrolling, those 8 seconds of attention span on a post, those mindless likes and claps and reposts, we somehow need to remember the purpose of what we are doing – and simply not do what we are led to do. We should not give in to the world of 6 inches but ask and get what we want, a 5 inch small device.

Not yet convinced….

Go and watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix over the weekend, if the nudge till now seems insufficient…you will feel the real push..and oh, before you go, do like, share and popularize this post, gives my ego a massive rush :).

Re-purpose

23rd August, 1942. The German 6th Army launched perhaps the bloodiest of battles WW2 has seen till then…by attacking Stalingrad. Through intense air raids aided by the Luftwaffe, the city of Stalingrad was reduced to a rubble within weeks, so much so that by mid of November, Soviet hold over the city was in just a few blocks along the course of Volga. Body count was close to a million.

Sitting in 2020 its hard to imagine the burden on the shoulder of the commanding officer of the Red Army in Stalingrad (in this case General Georgy Zhukov) tasked with the ominous task of defending the city at any cost, while the German artillery and air raids pilloried any standing structure. What he came up with is now matter of folklore – use the city rubble as your new fort. Put in snipers at every nook and corner of the bombed out buildings, inside caved basements, cracked rooftops, make every pile of broken bricks a hiding ground for the hunting marksmen. The slow grinding bloody battle worn out the Germans and ultimately resulted in the first surrender of Hitler’s forces in WW2.

But why am I talking of a war fought so long ago? Because IMO what Zhukov did was to re-purpose an already available asset. The asset was nearly destroyed but in the hands of a capable strategist, it was put to use in an effective alternative form.

So why am I interested in a story of broken buildings?

A house is probably one of the most valuable “tangible” asset that most of us possess. In the past 3 months, I have seen, heard and learnt of many a stories of broken households as a consequence of the unprecedented health scare and its cohorts of unemployment, uncertainties and miseries. It makes you think very hard why is it that the uncertain future (which is by definition always uncertain) had suddenly made us so fragile? Why are we so fixated on our current capabilities and processes and so rigid to even consider re-purposing our lives and livelihoods? Why is the thought of starting over again so feared upon?

We as a nation has mainly 3 obsessions, cricket, Bollywood and religion (and for many, the first 2 equates religion). Cricket as a game is simplistically speaking a case of continuous starting over by individuals – which ultimately adds up to the continuity. Starting over should not be an alien concept at all (but I think we all give the game a mare entertainment value and refuse to learn anything from it).

So is there any silver lining in this playbook?

A picture does the job of a hundred words. An ubiquitous last mile mass transport in almost all Indian cities are the quintessential 3 wheeler “tuk-tuk”. Such was their dominance on the Indian roads that even the mighty Uber had to go for a partnership with them instead of competition. COVID had a double whammy on the tuk-tuk owner-drivers as along with health risks ridership has come down to near zero levels in most tier 1 and 2 cities. But instead of laying down their arms they decided to re-purpose their vehicles and livelihood. Off goes the roof and the tuk-tuks gets converted to vegetable carts.

In Maharashtra’s Jalgaon, due to frequent power cuts, life moves in halts as operating any electrical machine without breaks becomes difficult. Jahangir Painter though of re-purposing his old scooter to a washing machine, a flour mill, a mobile spray painting units and more.

Closer home, and in much smaller amounts may be, we have re-purposed our households too! The dining table is now our de-facto work-desk, the TV a monitor of our laptops. The kids have re-purposed bedrooms into their school rooms (and the chatter of the whole class from 930-1230, you can imagine!).

Even previously we did re-purpose our lives. Focusing on just 1 out of the 6 letters in the word “Family” – “I”. As March progressed into July, so have the realization of how much separated we have become from our loved ones to pursue our individual goals. Rewinding is definitely not a bad idea from here!

Bliss to Blitzkrieg…and back

A couple of weeks ago I ran a thought experiment among my friends, family and colleagues. The question was simple, and if you are reading this, you can do it too. Imagine today is a Sunday and the online store from which I ordered an item sends me a message – “Please note your delivery which was scheduled for Wednesday would be advanced by 2 days”. My question is – so when am I going to receive my shipment, Monday or Friday?

Since then I have been asked umpteen times for the correct answer. Truth is the answer is your perception of time. If you inherently believe that you are just a simple cog in ocean of time; which moves towards you as you stay static tend to answer Monday, on the other hand those who like to walk into the future tend to answer Friday.

The perception of time itself has changed dramatically for me in the last few months. I am an avid traveler and tend to plan a lot into the future ( I have flight tickets booked in January for a trip in November 2020 to my hometown, and still believe I can do it, all long weekends in 2020 were blocked in my calendar sitting in Dec 2019). While nowadays, the distinction between weekends and weekdays have blurred and suddenly clocks seem to have doubled their speed. By 930 in the morning, all 3 occupants of the house are busy in front of their screens; the grown ups get busy with office calls and spreadsheets and presentations and calls and virtual meetings….and the kid gets busy with his e-schooling, music lessons, karate lessons and stuff. And puff…its 930 PM before you even realize.

I realized that no matter how much you loathe the word commute..for me it used to act as a buffer… a time to change modes and shift gears..between home and work, something I feel that we might be missing in here right now. We are acting in a continuum of space and time like the limit equations in calculus….just moving towards the next limit point in time without sparing a thought of relishing the today. That’s blitzkrieg, and with the benefit of hindsight, we all know how that ends up.

So Cruise on….but when you see that cafe, take a break!

On my part, got the little one and myself a pair of new flashy toy guns (and oh my, its so therapeutic!!)..and brought heel down on the house in the last week…wifey surely is not pleased, but all is fair in love and war! How about you?

Shooting for the green shoots

Playing with lights: Shot on Nikon D7000

Nearing the half century mark of our “lockdown” lives, and as I wash my hands for the ∞+1 time post a visit to the vegetable market, I was reminded of the weird connection between soaps and lemons (which I got a plenty this time as the temperature soared in this part of India). The very famous quote of “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” is credited to Elbert Hubbard, who used to work for “The Larkin Company“, a very successful soap company of its times. Though it perished in 1962, I guess it would have done brisk business in these times – sour lemons indeed! But this post is not about the lemons I got from the market or about the lemonade( which I am yet to make!), but the ones this situation has thrown at us and how we are using it :).

Count your lemons!

The past few weeks had been exceptionally busy for both the adults of the house. So much so that we failed to realize a subtle but important change that was happening with the very young one around. The kiddo had long gotten bored of his childhood soft-toy friends and sometime last year we decided to literally hang them up.

Walt Disney and Steve Jobs are no doubt master creators

All of a sudden since last week we realized that sunny has started carrying around his little “Mickey” to wherever he is playing/working/messing around. Wifey pointed out to me this Friday night as we tucked him and his mickey to bed – together and we realized the reality of his world – bereft of physical friends, locked up inside 4 walls, wondering what the parents are doing 9AM-7PM every day glued to their screens and craving for that extra affection and attention that’s his absolute due in these times! He is taking comfort in his old friends (thankfully he is not glued to screens like us!)

So we decided to make some lemonade!

First ingredient to make good lemonades – take out time! And we decided to fall in line with his demands and go for a spin. well, he went for a spin and we went for a run alongside him.

Post the physical exercise, next was time for some creativity and some time for us to be surprised with what his mind is upto these days. Mister has been listening to us discussing myriad things like automation and robotics at play nowadays and also to some of my stories on space missions. And out comes his take on it.

Now some icing on the…

All play and no food makes us a hungry lot! So out comes our new found passion – home cooking (as if we have much option, but ..lemonades!!). The adults have been burning our hands and honing our skills at it over this last few weeks, and must say, with wonderful results!

Firing it up with some home made pizza….

Spicing it up with some Kolkata style chilly fish..

Dolling it up with some authentic Gulab Jamun…

So at the end…

The week taught us some important lessons. That its upon us how we look at things and turn them around. There is a flood of pessimism but might be that we are missing the ship hidden behind the waves here! I was taking few snaps from our balcony (not much choice here !) ever since the lock down started and didn’t realize how life just kept on moving and maintained its flow. Only when I went back to my gallery did I realize the way nature just flowed ahead, oblivious to all the noise around. Now that’s a thought to ponder.

Life as it moves on: Shot on Nikon D7000 : End of March-10th May 2020

Sometime you need to get sick, before you get better….

Today is the 39th day of India’s continuous lockdown. And we are now staring at 14 more days (at least that’s what the 2nd official extension says).

In the year 2010, my wife Anjali was working with one of the biggest toll road operators in India. I use to provide a pick-n-drop service to her workplace on days when she didn’t feel like doing the 3 hrs, grand theft auto-esque drive on NH8, especially on Saturdays. Now whosoever has done the Delhi-Gurugram travel ever knows that the (erstwhile) toll island had a massive landmark – the Ambience mall. I use to park the car at her workplace, cross the toll island (that’s 32lanes for you) and park myself inside one of the many breweries on top of the mall, with a bottle of Corona (the beer kind) in my hand. Sounds neat? Well, in reality – I use to feel like a victorious Spanish matador after a bullfight once I made that ~10mins crossover, with thousands of cars literally gunning for you. Circa2020, and nothing much had changed, if only the cars has increased in numbers and size, and then Corona (the virus kind) happened. On a typical day till Jan 2020, it use to take us ~35-45 mins to do the ~10km Ambience-Sector 56 trip.

New road to cut travel time between Delhi and Gurugram, likely to ... — NH8 on a typical day, any time, any stretch..that’s what i am talking about

So whats now?

I would like you take a look at this video to register what has changed. It took just few days to for us to shift from a perma-red (and other variations of red) to green zones in terms of air quality.

Typical smog scene in North India – November 2019, and citizen’s movement on environmental issues

And this is what happens to AQI with lockdown in force- wonder what happened to topography, climate change etc here.

And all this while we have heard “experts” sharing their opinions on topography, climate change, weather patterns and what not – to emphasize that controlling air pollution is not in our hands at all, and that we should just accept this and move on.

And what happened?

Himalayas visible from a distance of 200kms after 3 decades (*TOI article)*

Closer home, a naked eye view of Pitampura TV tower from gurgaon, 40kms away

So why are we suddenly seeing things our grandfathers claimed about?

Close to 2 generations of Indians thought over the years that the claims of seeing himalayas from your windows by the village elders over a smoke where byproducts of their imaginations and a potent dose of opium in their “hukkas”. But there is a method to this madness. India changed its Industrial policy in 1991 and opened up the economy to private sector – incentivising private capex and entrepreneurship. Industries developed and a sizeable population was pulled out from the abyss of poverty, but the cost was hidden behind the smoke coming out from the thousands of chimneys.

area chart of India Electricity Production from September 1987 to March 2020 — Taking electricity demand-supply as an indicator of growth

area chart of India Employed Persons from December 1981 to December 2011 — Dip in early 2000’s more due to increased usage of technology and increased efficiency

We succeeded in combating issues like TB (lower respiratory diseases) due to access to improved healthcare for sure, but everywhere else – the fallouts of pollution was visible, but we chose to ignore.

But this respite itself is short lived, right?

An unprecedented and sudden global health crisis has shown us that we are capable of hard decisions. A paused world should realize that a slow poisoning of global population is far more deadly than the current crisis as nobody is even preparing for its fallout. This is also a time to stop and think of stuff that we really need in our lives vs. the ones we keep on consuming due to someone pushing it down our throats by manipulating our thoughts through print and digital channels. Do I really need to change my phone every year? Do I really need that extra pair of sneakers coz some cricketer is promoting it?

So what’s next?

I am high on the strongest dope ever invented – hope! Not all means of reaching our goals need to run on fossil fuels (and their ilk!). We are an ingenious species and someone must be building on a new scenario in her products for the new world order, which is soft on mother earth. When you send your broken car to the garage, you do get a chance to fix all those niggling issues which you didn’t find time to attend to!

I happen to watch HUGO with my kid and wifey and there was a strong message there – nothing is broken forever if there’s even 1 person who has the will to fix it. Surely we have 5 and half billion hopes moving around us to fix this mix.

P.S. The title of today’s post is taken from this amazing video I came across. Its a must watch!