Picture Perfect!

 

This is my favourite picture from our first cultural event at IIM - Bangalore | Pehel 2024. The song was India Wale and the pose was the 'Shahrukh Khan pose'... the last song in our flashmob.

Why is it my favourite? 

Each face here is a different story of blissful abandon and happiness etched for eternity on this canvas!

Just take a look! 

It feels like the entire dance just paused for this moment to come true ...... for some of us to close our eyes and just be one with the moment, some of us to smile widely and open our arms to embrace the whole world as a one, some of us channelled our inner superstar and just felt like one! 

Moments like these are a dancer's dream - when everyone is one with the music and ..... we make an imperfectly perfect picture! 

Every dream has it's day

My Bharatnatyam guru gave me this salangai (anklets) on Vijayadashami in 1995. I was to do my Arangetrum ( first Bharatnatyam stage performance) soon after..... unfortunately, we had to move cities suddenly and getting to that stage again with another teacher and school never happened.

In college, I broke my right knee ACL and subsequent surgery and recovery made sitting in Araimandi (half squat position needed for Bharatnatyam) impossible for a while and extremely difficult since. Dance was not going to stop for me... I paused the classical dances and started learning Western forms... became a Zumba instructor, and found my passion in teaching dance fitness.

All through these 3 decades... my salangai has been with me, wrapped in a yellow cloth, waiting patiently for me to break the barriers of my mind. I had been waiting for my Arangetrum someday... then I was waiting for a classical performance someday... then I was waiting for my knee to fully heal someday... then I was waiting for something... not sure what... to adorn it.

Last weekend I performed on stage... it was neither a full classical dance nor was it my Arangetrum nor is my knee pain free in Araimandi..... but my salangai accompanied me to the stage.

The roti we all eat and the ROTI we all need!

Got into IIM Bangalore!

Did a little dance .... stopped and smiled for a long time and then well .... danced a bit more!

The buildings and the architecture of the college impress you with the legacy and the traditions that would have passed the corridors year after year... time suddenly halts as you stand amidst the beautiful stone walls, and look at the light that just about peers through the green canopy in the covered spaces. The walls are adorned with pictures of students who just like you, would have once stood and admired the facade but are now part of the history that others will look on.

Just being here is an experience in itself and then suddenly you land up for the inauguration at the famous 'Chatur Ramalingam was here' auditorium. One of the alumni, Jay Doshi addressed the incoming batch and spoke about a concept that has resonated with me since that day. He said we need to understand ROTI -  Return on Time Invested - to make the most of our PGPEM program while keeping our sanity and focus. 

PGPEM is a different kind of MBA because we get to pursue our MBA over the weekends (Fridays, Saturdays and most Sundays) while continuing to work. This means your focus is already divided. What was just balancing work with personal time has now become "work - work travel - studies - MBA activities - events - personal time - family time...."

So ROTI makes sense - laser focus on what we feel will be a good return on our time invested. An elegant concept. 

The catch is what is a good ROTI for me? Where should I invest my time to get a good return? and what qualifies as a return for me? And what's the trade-off with my every decision? The answer should lie in our purpose should it not? Why did we choose to do this format of MBA? Why now? What do we want to get out of it? Is it getting great grades while spending quality time with family? Is it clinching a BD deal at work while networking at the B-school? Is it a degree but with a renewed perspective on business that I apply at work? 

Since the inauguration 7 weeks have passed - The sheer volume of information and things to do just hit you like Thor's hammer or Hulk's smash! ....We are even done with our midterm exams! and what I have realised is that no matter what we say we want our ROTI to be - we can only choose where we invest our time - the return may not always be in our control :)

And like Naina says to Bunny in 'Yeh Jawaani hai Diwani'  - "Jitna bhi try karo- life me kuch na kuch toh chootega hi. Toh jahan ho wahin ka mazaa lete hai" [ no matter how hard we try, we will miss something or other in life, so let's just enjoy where we are in the present ]

So I guess I am choosing to focus on the investment bit, each day at a time and let's see what happens! ... I will walk along the corridor to classroom N204 amidst the beautiful stone walls and..... well occasionally I will choose to invest my time to pause, for a moment, and look at the sunlight that just about smiles at me through the green canopy.

A Well Read Fool

This little piece was inspired by people I have come across at different times, who are not related to one another, they come from different walks of life but are strangely similar in their pattern of behaviour. Pulled it out of the archives :)

--------------------

A Well Read Fool

I sit with a book in hand

I read to know, I read to impress

I read to opine, I read to control

And people call me 'well-read'

There is not a fact I do not know

There is no discourse I cannot deliver

There is not a debate I cannot win

There is no opinion I cannot crush

But am I really well-read?

I see not the beauty of a painting 

unless to find a crooked line

I miss the forest for the tree

and find fault in everything but 'me'

I read to equip my vocabulary

but infinite knowledge fails to impress me

---*---

Blessed is the person who lives every breath

Finds magic in the sun, the wind and the sky

Who reads to understand how little he knows

And is just simply marvelled by life

What it is to live a life of adventure and exploration

of the mind and the soul

Express to lift up and not bog down

and walk along instead of alone

Unless I realize that the magic of freedom is to let go

of my 'self' and the so-called 'control'

I will live by my set rules

and will remain a well-read fool

-----------------------

Musings..... 'a page from 2011' | Inclusivity

 ........ Tennis has always been one of my favourite sports and I remember when I was about 25, I worked at Dr.Reddys and signed up for tennis coaching classes in my neighbourhood. It was a 6 a.m. batch - perfect for me to play, get ready and leave for work. 7 months in - I saw a notice saying the ladies' coaching batch had been pushed to 9 a.m. and the gents playing time was now scheduled from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Mind you we had 2 courts - one was designated as a coaching court and the other for people to play.

I went to the sports committee - some 6/7 men - most of them at least twice my age and they without blinking asked me why I really needed tennis coaching. I will never play professionally anyway and if I really need a coaching spot - why don't I just come at 9 a.m. or join the kid's batch? They said they needed both the courts to get in their tennis time as they have to leave for work.... and there were waiting times for turns at the court - the easier option for them was to change the ladies' coaching time and occupy the second court. When I said I worked as well - they immediately suggested joining the kid's batch (which had an age-wise division and a restriction of 18 years maximum) would probably be the best for me.

I then just marvelled at how they could just decide what was the best thing for me to do. However, this was not the first situation of this kind I had faced - I didn't back down and after negotiations with them - I got a coaching hour for working women and even had them organize a women's tennis tournament to get more women from the neighbourhood interested, and change one of the playing hours to be called just 'playing hours' not 'gents time'.

What did not surprise me back then but pinched me was - I knew I had to do it alone which I did. What surprised me was when I was able to put up my point and argue my case, most of them realized what I was talking about and it was not that hard to achieve a compromise - we found a reasonable workaround which worked for me and them - after all the fact was that there were far more men than women interested in the sport in my neighbourhood. They just had not seen it from my perspective coz there was no representation/no one in their circle that spoke about it / and the other women in the coaching hour just adjusted or gave up the sport.

This is why being open to different perspectives matters. 

You may not know you are not inclusive in your decisions because a different perspective is not in your experience. 

Journey to becoming a Vegetarian: A Change in Perspective

"Shraddha, how long have you loved dogs?"

I look up from petting about 4 at the same time and reply - "grown up with dogs yaar, prefer them to humans most of the time, a pet mommy to a naughty beagle boy as well". I smile as only pet parents can when they recollect how the house is going to be a mess of 'all things within reach' when they get back.

Silence

"you are a hypocrite"

"why do you say that?" ..   Puzzled and hurt at this accusation from my friend.

"how would you feel if people ate dogs?"

"no one eats dogs... are you mad.. how can you even think of killing and eating these beautiful creatures? must be so emotionless and made of stone to do it"

"You eat chicken don't you?

"Yes"

"How can you think of killing and eating 'those' beautiful creatures? Either you are emotionless or you are a hypocrite"

Silence

He continues...  "You relate to dogs because you understand their emotions towards you... you don't understand how a chicken or a lamb or a cow crys out before being killed... you have not given it a thought... you understand one creature's emotions and you don't understand another... that's why I called you a hypocrite..."

*flashback*

Butter chicken and naan | chicken steamed momos - yum yum! Every time I had a chance to order or eat out, the protocol was to go to a place that serves yummy non - veg food. Although I have never been a red meat eater- chicken was pretty much my staple food for over 2 decades.

Being a non- vegetarian was always a choice - a Iyer Brahmin eating chicken ( has to be a matter of choice). I remember not going to an all - veg restaurant because I wasn't sure what I would eat there..."Arre we make all the veg dishes at home... why go to a veg restaurant da?"

*then what changed*

The conversation with my friend made me think, the recent hue and cry in China about the dog festival made me think more...

everyone condemned that... who kills dogs they asked... who eats dogs?? ... "how inhuman" they said.... we said... I said...  are we hypocritical? am I being a hypocrite?

The conversation made me uncomfortable, all of it made me question something that I had been doing without thought for 30 years of my life. I did it for the taste on my tongue. I blocked out what was actually on my plate.

Condemning killing of dogs to satiate us while eating a lamb curry?

How does that make sense?

*I think back - school days*

Cousins are home- task of cooking chicken curry and rice falls on me while the parents are headed out to a wedding. I learn up the recipe and 4 eager mouths are waiting for it.

It's done-smells great - it tastes amazing - my sister and cousins are already demolishing the meal- but I don't eat - I can't eat - infact I eat nothing because I feel like throwing up after cooking the meat.

*but I forget this and after a few weeks I order chicken anyway*

but now, but today - I read up and research about non-veg and humans... did you know that in vegetarian animals, the digestive pipe is very long? do you know why?

The toxic content of veg food is less and vitamins and proteins are more - so the digestive system is designed to hold this type of food for longer hours in the body. 

For non-vegetarian animals, the food pipe length is very short as meat rots faster and needs to be absorbed quickly into the system before it goes bad in the stomach!!

And guess what? Human beings have a long digestive system - we are designed vegetarians... strange that as a science student I never paid attention to this. Moreover before being slaughtered animals generate toxins and hormones that we consume when we eat their meat... good or bad you decide.

*was this a first time a vegetarian had crossed paths with me and turned her nose at my being a non - veg by choice... no not really. But this time it made an impact*

An impact that caused a change in my perspective. The same thing I did over and over most of my life suddenly didn't make sense to me any more. I looked at my food not with my tongue but with my heart.

I no longer blocked out what I might feel on hearing how they are killed for me to eat. I looked, I heard, I felt and then I could not any more.

I changed the way I look at life.

I turned vegetarian for life.

"The House Hunter Chronicles" The weird brokers, the angry owners and the tired souls

The absolute joy of searching and renting a new apartment every year can only be aptly described as this title does!

The nomadic life of struggling to plant roots without the ‘loan’ and ‘apna apartment’ can only be experienced!

It is overrated for those who have stayed put in one house forever, and weirdly amusing to those who lend us ‘nomads’- the much needed help while shifting.

There are various types of these ‘working class - professional’ nomads who are forced to rent - stay – vacate - repeat:

-      The anxious: “worry worry from packing to searching to moving to everything… bottom line is ‘I must worry’

-      The fighter: “I will fight till the last penny owed to me is handed to me by the owners, woh paisa mera hai!”

-      The chalta hai: “acha wapas shift karna hai? Ok” (“oh we have to move again? OK”)

-      The prepared: will have all the numbers required right from Prabhakar Pest control, Ahmed uncle movers, gas wala ‘stylo guy’ to murthy bhaiya bisleri wale.

Now after my 7^th house shift - in as many years in Hyderabad… I can safely say I am all of the above! Leaving aside the fact that each house move was a different ordeal in itself, … each shifting has shed new light on the species we call as the ‘owners’ and even further light on me as a tenant/tired soul. Moreover it’s been hilarious in great many ways due to various specimens of humanity that I have encountered!

The weird brokers:

Of all the brokers I have met, this episode stands out! This was sometime in 2014, when I and my friend Anu, were looking for a house:

It was a usual dull thursday evening, both of us met up after work around 5:30 pm to meet this 10^th broker of the week and to check out a few apartments. It was going to be probably the 50^th house we were seeing in the past 2 months…. and all were pretty much beginning to look the same…

Venue: Some apartment complex with 8 floors and maybe 4 to 5 apartments on each floor

Starring: Shraddha, Anu, Rehman Bhaiya broker and the drunk/stoned/maybe both - watchman

*The broker scene – no retakes*

The drunk watchman being rudely woken up by the broker bhaiya (it took a little more than 15 mins of shaking and shouting) as both of us stood uncomfortably some distance away to the broker’s continuous pep talk –“ madam usually aaisa nai rehta”….. “ raat ko late soya hoga”…. “humesha duty pareech rehta unno”… “first time aaise dikhra mereko”

(“madam, this is new……., he is usually wake and…….. alert, he is a good watchman…….., maybe he slept late last night”)

We just nodded more to each other than the broker though.

The fun started when the guy actually woke up. He first stood up like he was never asleep, shouted a few orders to his invisible (I am assuming) family, then tried to strut the rest of steps to the lift and promptly fell.

Somehow we managed to get into the lift while the broker - I can only say restrained - the watchman from further ‘bond’ moments. After the lift announcement told us about 5 times to “please close the door” the watchman managed to close the rails and hit 4^th floor.

For the lack of anything better to do (and avoid starring at the watchman who was now slowly oscillating back and forth on the balls of his feet --- and would have hit the lift rails, had it not been his urge to smile stupidly at us every now and then),

I start quizzing the broker:  "bhaiya, fully furnished hai na?" (is the apartment fully furnished?)

*no answer….and to our surprise, the broker resorts to furiously nodding and winking and shushing while trying to duck behind the blankly grinning watchman’s back*

This would have been convenient and served the purpose if the watchman had resembled a bear and the broker was a skinny chap…. However here was this hugely proportioned beefy broker who was trying to shift his bulk behind a chap who would have slipped through the lift rails had he been standing sideways.

Not finding the correct answer I persisted:

 "bhaiya yeh rent kitna hai?" (how much is the rent?)

*no answer again….vehement nodding and winking by the broker continues, this time accompanied with furious foot tapping*

By this time thankfully we reach the floor and the drunk watchman slowly opens the lift while suspiciously looking at the broker, as though his foot tapping had suddenly jolted him from his grinning reverie.

It’s a corner flat, we walk in and it looks like we entered a horror movie set – the place looked haunted, dusty and was not furnished! We both come out in about 2 seconds to find the broker yelling at the watchman that he had brought the wrong key and it was not this house that he had intended to show.

The now – fully suspicious watchman - still drunk though and not fully in control of his faculties - provided some entertainment for the next 10 minutes aided of course by the broker – who had stopped winking and nodding and had resorted to furiously pacing the corridor while talking into his phone- to (what we could garner) his boss - to understand which house he should show.

Like a slow CPU processor which has just realized the computer has been turned on - the watchman followed the broker – occasionally stopping to help us relive his grinning moments.

Anu and I spent the next 10 mins outside near the elevator watching the slow moving broker desperately trying to shake off his watchman shadow by swiftly changing his direction while walking in a 6 feet by 6 feet corridor space.

When we felt the entertainment has last long enough, we decided to leave only to be estopped by a series of mysterious facial signals by the broker which again involved a lot of winking/ glancing/ nodding /raising eyebrows /opening and closing of the mouth. Oh the watchman was grinning on the side of course.

Finally with no help from anyone (surprise) - the watchman decided that he should go down and get the right set of keys! I am sure it must have felt like the ‘eureka’ moment for him given that he suddenly stood up erect - and announced: “I go get new keys from down….madams stay here” (points at the floor and stares for 2 mins) and then abruptly gets into the lift, gesturing the broker to follow him.

The broker on the other hand looked delighted that his shadow was finally leaving but his face fell when he realized that he was to follow the shadow.

What unfolded next was nothing short of strange, now when the two of us think back, we don’t know why we even followed through: The watchman hits ground floor button and begins to close the rails, the broker promptly jumps out at the last minute and closes the rails and the elevator goes down with only the watchman.

The broker then shoots past us to the floor on top remarkably swiftly for all his bulk and yells "madamji!!! jaldi aayiye…..ghar upar wale floor pe hai" (madam quickly, the actual apartment is on the top floor)

And we follow him up the stairs like a spy movie and we are told by the broker (in hushed voice at a breakneck speed) that we need to pretend that the last house on the 5^th floor belongs to our long lost friend (suddenly created) and we have to visit them (or the world might end) with that on parting note the broker suddenly nods and winks again and leaves us at the doorstep of a flat on the 5^th floor. He rings the bell and backs up saying,” "woh watchman ko pata nai chalna chaiye ki aap yahan ho" (the watchman should not know that you are seeing this flat) (imagine voice slowly trailing away as he walks off)

We both were well – extremely startled/ open mouthed/ what's happening? …when the door opens to reveal an aunty who shows us the house with great interest….By then, the two of us were so startled and distracted that seeing the house and how it looked like is the only thing about that evening we have completely forgotten.

When we step out of the house…. we see both the watchman and the broker stepping out of elevator at the same time, walking hurriedly towards us and asking simultaneously "madam kahan gaye aap"? (madam where did you go?)

Anu: "humari friend yahan rehti hai jo bimar hai…. usse dekhne aaye the"

(“our friend is ill and we came to see her”)

I am surprised at the sudden fluent lie. I stop to look at her… and by the look on her face she is surprised at the lie as well!! Watchman is startled (still suspicious but startled… a weird combination on his already excellent drunk face). Broker gives Anu a nice warm brotherly smile and glances nervously at the watchman.

Anu has this vague expression about her as we leave the building, something akin to – well that’s that, let’s get to business now.

“Aah Shraddha, see there is a veggie truck, let’s buy veggies here only then”

* end *