Heartcrossings

Not So Augmented

2012-01-19T14:16:00.001-05:00

Unless I am completely missing the point here, this story about augmented reality plus personalization is a text message on a skin that just happens to be a chocolate bar wrapper Per Digital Trends : Augmented reality is the interaction of superimposed graphics, audio and other sense enhancements over a real-world environment that’s displayed in real-time. Based on that definition this does not qualify to be termed Augmented Reality.

It would be another thing if the message magically appeared on the bar of chocolate someone was physically holding in their hands. Imagine having the chocolate serenade you in the beloved's voice just as you were getting ready to unwrap it - now that would be more in the realm of augmented reality.

Some commenters have pointed out that some augmented reality chocolate would be nice - the satisfaction of chocolate without the guilt or calories. Or maybe when I am getting ready to buy chocolate augment the bar with information on a better snack option based on my health/fitness goals and lead me out of temptation.

The Information Diet

2012-01-14T12:41:00.002-05:00

I am so convinced the way we consume information is terrible for us that Clay Johnson had me on his side just by choosing to write a book on this subject - The Information Diet. Given my bias, I don't know that I can be the most dispassionate and objective reviewer. Ironically, I might be going exactly what Johnson cautions the reader against when it comes to consuming information - taking affirmation over information. That said, I highly recommend this book to believer and non-believer alike. If you consider that the filter bubble Google, Facebook et al are creating for us is in our best interest, this book is for you. If you want to break free, assert your autonomy and consume information in the raw sans spin, filter, churn or bias, this book is for you.

Johnson starts by describing his background and credentials for writing this book. He goes on to draw parallels between an unhealthy diet and its effects to the human body to lack of deliberation and consciousness in consuming information and its effects on our minds. Simply stated, Johnson wants us to evaluate our relationship with information consumption and get on a fitness regimen so we can work ourselves out of our mental obesity. He paraphrases Micheal Pollan's exhortation on diet "Eat. Not too much.Mostly plants" as "Consume Deliberately. Take information over affirmation"

Johnson recommends an Infovegan lifestyle to combat Information Obesity. It involves " mastering data literacy - knowing where to get appropriate data, and knowing what to do with it, using the right kinds of tools. It means making sure you're not put into situations where you situations where you're forced to consume overly processed information"

I could not completely agree with the Information Diet that Johnson recommends for a few reasons. Cancelling cable or satellite TV is great but to I am not sure that the best replacement is a combination of Youtube, Hulu and Netflix. Navigating them is an art and science that most of us are not well-versed in. While we may be in the driver's seat in consuming information, we may not be able to direct ourselves optimally. As such, we may become malnourished through our information diet. There is value is listening to talking heads on television. If they are in the business of churnalism and agnotology (I learned both words from this book), there is value in subjecting ourselves to both in low doses so we remain inoculated.

I do agree with the idea of incorporating diversity into the information sources you consume from. I read Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble recently and have become even more deliberate than I was before about avoiding personalization. I love Johnson's examples of websites that do a terrific job of being information synthesizers. He names Khan Academy, TED and Kickstarter ( I was not aware of this one)

Even if you do not agree with the prescription, this book will make you think about information consumption, educate you on the research in this field and prompt you to take control of that diet.

Slipping Up

2012-01-07T13:40:00.002-05:00

As a parent, one is required to dole out punishment in proportion to the offense. Nothing confuses a child more when such is not the case. What seems so self-evident is often hard to practice in real life unless you happen to be the perfect parent. I have slipped up on this rule several time in the last ten years that I have been J's mom.

Back in the day, I attributed it to unmanaged stress, having too many balls to juggle and no one to help - to err was human . With DB coming into my life and taking on the responsibilities of the dad J never had, I no longer have the same excuses. And yet, I ranted at her furiously for ten minutes straight while driving her over to her friend's birthday party.

As her life has become more and more "regular" ( two parents, a home instead of an apartment, multiple vacations in a year, a closet full of clothes, more media and electronics than she has ever had ), J has relaxed. Used to be that she thought it was her responsibility to work around the constraints of my "situation". She bore it without complaint or question - at the cost of thwarting the natural flow of her childhood. That has since changed - J now has the ability to be a child and a tween, act up sometimes in ways that drives us crazy. Her offense was just that - she was being her age. I read into in quite a bit more than I should have, did not react until the tenth repeat of the offense. Basically, she had no idea she had been doing wrong until I blew up - suddenly and uncontrollably.

I came home and shared with DB - told him that I felt like a monster for saying cruel and hurtful words to J; I feared that what I said may leave scars for life. He advised not to apologize to her to make it right. "Talk to her about how her behavior disappointed you and that you got really frustrated. Let her talk about how she felt. The love you have for each other is too strong a force for something like this to weaken it" and then when I felt a little better he added "Extend the most patience you have to J - that way you will not have such severe reactions"

When I tucked J in at night, we had talked about it - she realized where she had been wrong and what she could do different. I told her that we could not pretend that I did not say what I said or that she did not feel what she felt - we had to acknowledge that. Despite my failings, I felt well loved - by J and by DB and I was very grateful for that.

Best In Class

2012-01-03T11:43:00.000-05:00

I asked J during dinner last Sunday about her thoughts on the Lady Gaga New Year's eve performance at Times Square we watched on TV. I have given up on understanding such phenoms being that I am too old and culturally out of touch to get what they are all about. She said she didn't much care for it but had this to say about why this performer is so popular. "She is best in class for talent plus weirdness"
According to J, there are many other more talented singers and definitely weirder people out there. But Lady Gaga tops the talent plus weirdness combo and that's the reason she is so popular. J made it very simple for me "To be wildly popular you have to be the best in class at something". I cannot remember another time I have been so enlightened on popular culture in so few words.

Connecting to Desiness

2012-01-02T22:12:00.001-05:00

During J's winter break, we were visiting with a friend of DB's whose wife recently had a baby. It is not often that we get five days of the immersive desi experience so it was almost like a trip to India minus the cost and the hassle. We had freshly cooked meals four times a day - both DB and I love to cook so we gladly pitched in. The mom-in-law caught her desi soaps on the living room TV and after the kids and grandma went to bed, we watched a Bollywood flick. This family is all set to return to India in the next couple of years - it has been their plan from the start. The amped up desi ambiance around the house is supposedly for the benefit of the kids who will find the transition easier. They socialize only with their kind to minimize the impacts of a culture that will soon become foreign to the children.

As we watched some of the ridiculous shows grandma is hooked on to, we could not help comparing them to some of the entertainment Doordarshan provided in 80s and early 90s when there were no other options. They were infinitely more sensible and represented the India that we lived in. These folks go back every year and spend a few months in their home town - unlike DB and I, they have never grown strangers to India. It was interesting to see that they agreed with us. We would all love to see Indian television do something that spoke to us and our desi-ness. It certainly does not to me and many of my desi friends - maybe desi-ness as an idea and identity is in a state of flux right now. Until we are able to find our true voice, the popular media will sound cacophonous.

In the middle of all this, I decided to check out Aravind Adiga's Last Man in Tower and retired hurt. Past page thirty or so, I could no longer keep up with the burgeoning cast of characters. Adiga had pulled off an afternoon desi soap on the reader. The plot does not flow or expand on it's own merits but is padded and propped by characters and stories that contribute nothing to the denouement.

Our hosts recommended that we watch the movie Kaminey since neither DB or I had watched it before. We were advised to follow the plot closely because it was a complicated one. I am guessing the idea was to go for edgy, ironic and different - take done to death the twins separated at birth story and turn it on its head. Every few minutes there would be a part that was really nicely done -with that came an expectation of more and better to follow, but that did not seem to happen. The whole experience was like a roller coaster ride with frequent ups and downs. May have been fun for thirty minutes and under but intolerable for a full length movie.

Reading this story out censoring the sense out of American TV shows made me think about how our friends are preparing for their family's return to India. Maybe all of this is symptomatic of the state of confusion we are in as a people.

Two Roads

2011-12-27T22:41:00.001-05:00

Read this article about two paths to marital happiness - either have no kids at all or have a whole bunch of them. Doing something in between apparently does not bode well for a couple's happiness. This is how the plight of folks such as myself is described :

Attempting to balance being an autonomous individual and a social animal produces a kind of incoherence that leads to misery. You're constantly confused and being pushed in different directions. You can't even explain to people who you are.

I find that to be a harsh indictment. In the modern world where a village is often lacking to help with the raising of our children, bringing up four or more of them is no walk in the park. One has to assume that one or both parents have to go to work to put food on the table -in either case, the time and energy required to raise the children is seriously diminished. I am not sure how a perpetually over-worked, at-capacity couple can have a great marriage - where would they find the time to nurture their relationship ?

The distinction between an autonomous individual and a social individual does not make sense either. To be a social animal (a parent) an adult has to be an autonomous individual first - they have to be functional and competent independently before they can take responsibility for any number of offspring. I am not sure that it is actually possible to be one or the other. As for the incoherence leading to misery - it could be argued that a social animal without a well developed autonomous individuality could be even more so and fall apart under the demands of parenting four or more children

A Little Knowledge

2011-12-22T14:58:00.000-05:00

The other day DB and I were talking about people of a certain age coming to feel inexplicable emptiness in their lives. When everything is functioning on autopilot and there are no big problems (money, health, substance abuse etc) to worry about, instead of feeling at peace they feel lost and miserable. Often a true spiritual guru may be able to answer what ails them and lead them out of it but it is certainly not easy to find one. Is the guru not supposed to seek out the disciple when they are ready ?

The stories of charlatans and false prophets are widely known as are the accounts of the damage they wreck upon the lives of their gullible followers. The conversation got me thinking about another kind of misguidance that parents and other adults may provide a child. In many Hindu families of my acquaintance I have seen adults take a parable or quote from a religious text, translated, diluted and distorted in the final rendition to make a point to a child.

While they have the best intent, they lack the qualifications for the job they are setting to undertake. So their lesson may be entirely incorrect and do more harm than good. The child might in fact have been better served without the lesson in morality and ethics. The body of knowledge is too vast for an average person to assimilate on their own and good teachers are hard to come by. The oral tradition has been on the decline for a few generations now so the learning parents pass on to their children is a pastiche culled from a variety of sources - not all equally reliable.

When I was growing up, I often heard adults talk about the misogynistic views expressed in Manu-samhita and how it stymied the growth of the Indian woman for hundreds of years. Manu was held directly responsible for all the social ills of the country. Random quotes would be tossed up and torn apart for the purposes of these discussions. Though I was too young to participate, I itched to ask how many had read the original Sanskrit version of the text, how many had read any expert commentaries to it and finally what was the overall context of the quote that was under fire.

Similarly, someone would quote a short passage from the Bhagavad Gita or one of the Upanishads and expound on it as if the literal translation was all that there was to it. My childhood is rife with examples of adults with dangerously little knowledge of Hindu philosophy attempting to mold my world view and teach me the art of living. Lately, I find myself trying to rid my system of all that meaningless clutter - become knowledge free so I have a shot of learning something right.

Short and Sweet

2011-12-20T10:16:00.002-05:00

When J is in trouble, she launches into a defense that is as improbable as it is convoluted. She is deliberately slow and aims to exhaust. By the time she is done, I might have even forgotten what I was mad at her for and snap at her for rambling endlessly. But there are times when she can be succinct.

When she reads a new book, I encourage her to talk about it, better still write up a short review. Needless to say, she views these things as chores she'd rather not do. It is so much easier to get away with "It was really cool !" - a phrase that I hate with passion. This morning, I asked her about The Man Who Counted (a book she has just read) and she had this to say "It is Birbal meets The Number Devil "

Maybe I can challenge her to summarize books in six non-adjective words. Knowing J, I would be shocked if she does not find a way to wriggle out of that assignment as well.

Mildly Complicit

2011-12-15T20:58:00.003-05:00

Recently J told me about a profitable little business enterprise that a kid in her class has been running. He makes paper guns and sells them at a quarter a pop. The paper bullets are sold for ten cents a piece. By her accounting, he has sold at least ten guns.A couple of issues were bothering her - is this kind of activity allowed in school and is it fair for the boy to sell these things for real money.

She does not want to be the tattle tale and report him to the teacher because both the gun and bullet are harmless. Apparently, all the kids know about it but no has taken it upon themselves to inform the teacher. I am guessing like J, they must have mentioned this to their parents, and like me, those parents have not recommended that their child talk to the teacher about this. I find this whole situation intriguing at many different levels. The kids are in the least considering this a little outside the ordinary and likely talking about this at home. They are not convinced that it is bad enough that the boy needs to reported - there is symmetry in their thought process. If that is true about the adults as well,they maybe chalking this up to a kid being silly and creative, having a little harmless fun - expecting it will go away once the novelty has faded.

J has not talked about this in the last couple of weeks so it is quite possible that all potential buyers have already made their purchases and better yet reverse engineered it to make their own.This incident had me wondering if we as parents are sometimes complicit in bad outcomes in the lives of our children.As a group we failed to call this child's attention to something that may not be entirely cute, creative or silly. Maybe we have provided tacit encouragement as a group for him to up the ante some more.

Comfort Zone

2011-12-14T10:45:00.001-05:00

J can be the life of the party at home but will turn into a little mouse in school. This has been her way for the last couple of years or maybe we have noticed it more since that time - DB and I would love to see some of that fun, vibrant and somewhat theatrical personality she displays at home to make its way to the classroom as well. But that has yet to happen. We recently signed her up for drama class and she is having the best time of her life there.

Even with that, the mouse at school is yet to transform into something bigger and bolder. I spoke with her guidance counselor this morning and she said something that helped recalibrate my expectations about J.

Ms K said that no matter how hard you push and how hard you try as a parent, there is little you can do to change what is innately the child's personality. J may never be able to be her most natural self outside the comfort zone of home. She will benefit from us encouraging her to be more assertive, being front and center of things instead of hiding somewhere no one can see her and most importantly advocating for herself. Yes, the drama lessons will help too. She will do a little of everything that we would like for her to do but it may never be to the extent that we believe she is capable of based on what we see of her at home. This is something we as parents will learn to accept and move on.

Hearing Ms K helped me in several ways - for one thing, I will not be so quick to be disappointed with J when she struggles disproportionately (in my mind) to speak up, assert and advocate herself. More importantly, I will ask her to take on smaller challenges to build up her strength - I will continue to push as I have always done but more in the form of gentle nudges than a big shove in the direction I want her to go. I hope in time, J will have acquired the confidence to be bring that much bigger personality she has to bear upon the mouse simply because being her natural self would be more fun and relaxing.

Delhi Belly

2011-12-13T16:04:00.001-05:00

I have not watched a Bollywood flick for over a year now and decided it was time to get caught up. I chose Delhi Belly and was very glad I did. It is a funny, risque and smart little movie - not your garden variety Bollywood caper. Each character does their part really well in making this movie come together rather nicely. The dude with the Delhi Belly is not the protagonist but his condition directly contributes to many twists and turns in the plot. The fact that I laughed as many times as I did watching this movie, made me realize that the desi in me is alive and well ; not having been back to India in over eight years has not taken that away from me. DB would have enjoyed it too - but his desi-ness is much too worn out for him to get what I did out of it.

What is specially neat about the movie is how well it captures the essence of the Indian experience - we are a people and country that can span centuries and millinea within a day of our lives. There is this dilapidated house with toilet fixtures from the early part of the last century shared by three guys with unremunerative, non-mainstream jobs, the offices are swank and very twenty first century, the electronics on the more well-heeled characters are state of the art , the wardrobes are deeply influenced by the west but not entirely subordinate to it. To that extent we have the ironic tee-shirts with distinctly desi flavor and the zari trimmed vest on a scooped top. There is the kathak guru upstairs from the three guys instructing young girls on a dance form thousands of years old in a setting not unlike what it was back then - very little if anything has changed about their world. The landlord who seeks comfort in the arms of a prostitute visits them in an establishment that looks as old as the trade itself.

The female characters in the movie range between conservative to liberated and everything in between. They are not the one-dimensional romantic interests for the male roles - among other things it was good to see female sexuality being acknowledged without subterfuge.There is a place in India for all of this to co-exist, the multitude of characters and locales that shape our communities grow with the wild profusion of a tropical rain forest. It may not be pretty or well-ordered but it is certainly not sterile and lifeless. All of these contradictions come together to create the Indian and desi experience. I have missed the time travel that everyday life back home can be. Delhi Belly was the perfect Indian sampling platter for someone who has not been home in a while.

Musical Wilderness

2011-12-13T09:05:00.002-05:00

I am just about ten years late to the party but better late than never. For all that time I lived in musical wilderness without an idea of where to find new sounds that may appeal to me. In a time when nostalgia should have been indulged in sparingly if at all, I wallowed in it. I drew comfort from familiar music in times of trouble and while the music recreated it's magic, it brought in its wake memories that I was anxious not to return to. From being one of the biggest joys and escapes of my life music became an unfamiliar, uncomfortable relationship.

I used to try and listen to the iPod shuffle lists of blogosphere luminaries. Sadly they did nothing for me - apparently our tastes were too far apart. J is itching to discover music just like me at her age - she is constantly looking for recommendations so she can find that magic range of sounds that resonate deepest with her. The music I have grown up with and love is too far away from her culturally, generationally or both - she may grow into it in time but right now she needs to hear something with a modern sound and vibe. Then this past weekend, I discovered Fluxblog (a music blog that has been around since 2002) and I am trying to catch up on missed time. Whatever his criteria and musical sensibility, I am certainly feeling in synch with a lot of Matthew Perpetua's recommendations and that is such a blessed relief -finally someone who can lead me out musical wilderness. I may now be able to help her broaden her horizons as well.

Wrong Lane

2011-12-12T12:21:00.006-05:00

I interviewed for a full time position after many years a month ago. This is one of the biggest companies in town and pays better than most other outfits. Post marriage and with J getting ready for middle school next year, I thought it would be best for me to slow down and settle into a regular job, have vacation time and generally better work-life balance. The interview process was like a decathlon - I jumped and cleared all the required hoops and had no less than four different hiring managers clamoring to bring me on board.

Life was good until it was not. A couple of weeks after all these "great conversations" were had, the recruiter came back with an offer that was for a position one level below that what I had interviewed for and had these "terrific" discussions with the different hiring managers.Right after dissing me with respect to the position she threw me a bone - she promised to make up the pay difference by giving me the highest salary they could at the level. In a full time role, position often counts more than salary - I may have settled for the lower pay if the position (specifically, title) was what I needed it to be.

I found it intriguing how this all worked. I was being low-balled for position and not money (we may have been able to agree on that) because it must have become apparent during the course of the many discussions that the title and where I was in the hierarchy was more important to me than compensation. The whole experience left a bad taste in the mouth - I realized that I had failed some shibboleth that identified me as the outsider I am when they were looking for an insider who could be like one of them, fit in the culture and generally not upset the established order of things.

It has been a while since I have been in the corporate environment as a full time employee - I have forgotten how to swim in the shark tank that it can be.DB tells me that I am being needlessly proud and emotional in making the decision not to accept the job offer - the money I am being offered is still very good. He is probably right but I feel like I would be better off leaving with my dignity intact than accepting less than I deserve. In my single parent years, I never exercised my right to choice about employment - I took the first thing that came along because being employed was the single most important objective - I sacrificed a lot in the process. This time I am exercising my right to choose not to be in the wrong lane and wait until I find what is right for me. As the holiday nears and the job market dries up for the year, my resolve may start to waver - I would feel like I am imposing upon DB if I don't do my part for the family.

Lack of Resolution

2011-12-11T08:56:00.006-05:00

As soon as I spotted T at the table by the window, I could tell she was bursting with news. It had taken us a week and a couple of reschedules to meet for lunch - it certainly helped for my calendar to be wide open everyday or this would have taken months. I was not wrong about the "news". Even before I had taken my coat off she announced "Do you remember M ?" I had a bad feeling about this one right away.

M was someone she had introduced me to several years ago in her overzealous effort to pair me up. The guy was nice enough but clearly not right for me. We met a couple of times and went our separate ways. That was the last time T played match-maker and I was in a sense grateful to M for this."Yes, I do" I replied. "Guess who he got married to last month ?" I had no idea. It turns out that his wife is T's boss at work.

I realized that piece of information in itself was not the "news" she was bursting to share. "Well, he has a profile up on Match pictures and all and another girl I know has been talking to him for months ! What a creep ! I realized it was M when she told me about this cool guy she met online but hasn't met for real yet. He travels a lot on the job - what a load of bullcrap !" T continued without pause before I could ask what was newsworthy about her boss marrying M.

"So are you planning on ratting him out ?" I asked. "That is exactly the problem. Clearly, I can't tell my boss. I could tell this girl but she is a bit of a lose cannon - I have no idea what she'll do when she find out who his wife is. What do you think ?" T replied.

I was wondering if M's wife already knew what he was up to and was deciding to turn a blind eye to save face and maintain what she can of her dignity in this sordid situation. He was not even taking the trouble to hide his pictures on his profile and was talking to a girl in the same town - he was cheating on his wife with complete impunity. He could not even be bothered to follow the 50 mile rule to spare her embarrassment.

T's boss is a desi woman in her mid forties. She had gone to medical school in India and earned a bunch of advance degrees in this country. She headed up a research lab in town. According to T, she was very attractive and looked years younger she really was. M is just a run of the mill IT drone with a fairly limited world view and an over-sized ego. It is sad enough that the woman with so much going for herself would have to settle for one such as M but to add insult to injury, one such as M would take her for granted to the point he would humiliate her so blatantly. That is all I could think about.

I had no idea what T should do under the circumstances - maybe turn a blind eye as well and let the three of them deal with it. So here I was, looking forward to lunch with an old friend, wanting to share some of the things on my mind - the feeling of lightness and purposelessness during my time off, not having the wherewithal to enjoy some downtime without going crazy and I am called upon to resolve a moral dilemma.

Finder

2011-12-10T10:53:00.003-05:00

I think I want one of these Finders to help me find my all too often misplaced stuff. I would actually go beyond the mundane business of key and phone (and everything in my bag that I cannot find) and use it to locate my spices in the kitchen stuffed two or three layers deep or just somewhere I would not readily know to look. Then there is all the paperwork put away ever so carefully never to be found again. My list of missing, misplaced or forgotten stuff is a very long one - mostly I am dealing in the territory of "unknown unknowns" and that can be rather scary sometimes.

DB's big complaint about my cooking is that there is way too much improvisation going on all the time and no consistency. If he likes how I cooked something for dinner one night the odds of that dish being reproduced ever again are close to none - he jokes that he eats every nice meal I cook like it were his last meal. While that is in part because I cannot curb my need to improvise in the kitchen, but a lot of the "changes" happen as a result of not being able to find the right spice at the right time. Sometimes the outcomes of these bizarre last minute switches surprise pleasantly and DB and J will urge me to write down the recipe so they can have it again.Needless to say, recipe writing is not my forte.The less said about the times things go south, the better.

Now, if I could assemble everything I needed before I started cooking (as DB always encourages me to), we may not run into these issues at all but that mode of operation would be inconsistent with a compulsive improviser. More often than not, I have no idea what I am about to cook until the very last minute so it is impossible to have a fully flushed out plan. A Finder may help me improvise within safe guardrails and not have me switch from a Far Eastern recipe to a Central American one because I was not able to locate what I needed on time - DB and J may be spared that sinking feeling when they see a familiar dish look just a tad different.

Doris The Cauliflower

2011-12-09T08:59:00.002-05:00

The blurb on Doris the Cauliflower in this article gave me pause. Were I to run into her in the local supermarket would I choose her over Anon ? Being a frugal shopper the only measure that would steer me Doris-wards would be price. Now, if they were priced exactly the same, I do think I would allow myself to succumb to the cute factor choose a named cauliflower.

If the trend caught on and every fruit and vegetable started to have a name, it would become unappealing and annoying even - at that point I would not care anymore. I wonder how kids may react to this and if they may be more inclined to try something they may not have otherwise cared for. As a test, I asked J and she said she'd be more interested in Doris than a plain old cauliflower (a vegetable she does not like too much) - it was more fun. She added that the blurb about Doris gave you an idea of how to cook the vegetable without being a recipe - that she thought was interesting idea too.

Should this be appealing to kids in general, there could be some co-branding opportunities. Baby carrots being Thomas the Train or Dora the Explorer could get our little ones to choose them over chicken nuggets and Cheetos for instance. Parents would likely pay a little extra for the named vegetable in that case.

Living Within Means

2011-12-08T16:23:00.001-05:00

In her article Planet Singlehood, Amiee Ginsburg writes "Now I realise there was a price to be paid for being a couple that I could not pay, even though I had had my heart set on it. Now I’m living within my means." A long time inhabitant of Planet Singlehood, I can completely relate to her sentiments. It does take a lot of mental space and energy to come into and sustain a relationship. I had foolishly assumed the same amount of investment would not be necessary in marriage and I am learning I was wrong. While I was unable to extend myself as far as was required to just be in a relationship, I feel more ready, willing and able to do so in marriage simply because my spouse has gone the distance by making a lifetime commitment to me and J - as such, he deserves it. Yet, the effort that goes into the process does make me feel like I am "living beyond my (emotional) means".

Of her single state and its impact on her kids, Ginsburg says "I was not able to show them how to cross adulthood in a healthy relationship, but maybe they’ve learnt something about autonomy and strength, and true love." How absolutely true ! I don't know that I am the best role model for J as far as how to be in a healthy relationship. I have a lot of unresolved issues that are making their presence felt in my marriage with DB. In the end, she will take away from observing me and us, what she will. If it is within my power, I will encourage her to examine our life and decide what parts of it to emulate in her own and what to reject. Enabling her to do that will the best I can do in lieu of being the relationship role model, I have not yet been able to be.

Uncoiled Spring

2011-12-07T08:42:00.000-05:00

I am enjoying a little time off these days after many vacation-less years. One of the pitfalls of having a clockwork routine for a very long time is that you forget how to unwind, relax and do nothing. It took me several days to learn not to look at the clock and let time ebb as is must without being mindful of its passage. I learned to watched the squirrels and birds in the backyard, consider the beauty of the tree that has a creeper covering its trunk and moss encrusting its bare branches.

Once spring returns, I will not be able to see this unadorned beauty any more. When the day warms enough, I go out for a four mile walk. My route takes me past a high school and sometimes I see a bunch of kids in the schoolyard - if I happen to be there during their recess. Mostly, everyone is inside in the classrooms. The streets are empty, the traffic is light and I enjoy my solitude and music. My idyll was broken rudely one rainy morning, when I woke up feeling that my life was without purpose.

J is a fairly responsible young lady and requires very little supervision. DB is not a needy husband - he is able to give me as much space as I need and does not interfere with any of my plans. His mantra for this relationship is that I bring happiness to him only when I am happy on my own and he is willing to support any and all of my pursuits of happiness. The definition of "my life" outside my two roles in the family of wife and mother seems to be lacking if not entirely absent.

So while I have a partner who is urging me to expand my horizons and seek out that which will nourish my soul, I don't know that I know what that may be. I use my work to give me a sense of self - with that missing for now, I was grasping for something else that had comparable weight. It was the "unbearable lightness of being" that I was experiencing. The incessant rain was not helping my spirits either. In lieu of waiting for the sun to pick me up, I reached out to my friend T to see if she wanted to do lunch.

As I was going to find out, tapping into a source of energy outside myself can have some unexpected consequences.

Transformation

2011-12-06T17:21:00.004-05:00

I saw the Cassandra Bankson video a few days ago and was amazed by her artistic talent. She was able to transform her canvas in the most extraordinary way - it was like watching artist create a master-price. Her message is straight from the heart - it takes a lot of courage and empathy for such a young person to be able to show a face so badly scarred for the world to see. Most women wear makeup - from a little to a lot of it. It is not unlike children using crayons to express themselves. What we make of our "crayons" can in the end be very different. Cassandra is able to use them as a powerful tool - it frees her from social awkwardness and self-consciousness that an acne ridden face can mean.

She uses makeup to liberate herself and that is a powerful transformation to watch. She is a beautiful person even without the makeup but with her skills she is able to achieve the level of airbrushed perfection that millions of others aspire to. I was left wondering about reality and illusion as I watched the video - which is the real Cassandra. As her face nears perfection, you can almost feel the internal transformation happen - she emerges like a glorious butterfly from its chrysalis. Makeup when done as perfectly as Cassandra's is like a mask infused with life. It enables the person wearing it take on a completely different personality. In her case, a career path that would have otherwise been impossible. It is no longer about simple vanity, it is an enabling force - I don't think I had ever thought of makeup in those terms until I saw this video.

A woman freshening up to go to work would be the equivalent of a child's doodle to Cassandra's Rembrandt. Professional makeup artists do what Cassandra is doing every day; the fact that she uses her own face ( the blemished canvas) to illustrate her art is what makes this a such powerful and personal statement about what is in the realm of possible for anyone to achieve.

Evergreen Toys

2011-12-04T13:57:00.001-05:00

This list of the five best toys ever is the best list of toys I have ever seen. J used to love all of them except the last one - dirt. She is yet to outgrow String and Box. Very reassuring to have an expert (the author) share a lay person's (myself) perspective on toys for children.

J's dance teacher has a four year old boy who I play with when we are there for her class- it keeps him occupied and out of the way of the dancers.The kid has a designated toy room with at least five hundred toys and yet he inevitably wants to play his favorite game that involves none of them. It takes a piece of cardboard, two dice and two plastic sticks. He can spend a good hour creating variations of games using just those things. I've asked him to show me how some of his toys in the toy room room work. He grudgingly agrees and wants us to go back to playing his game of board, dice and sticks.

It is as if he wants to escape the excess of toys by going back to basics - he could not get more minimal than that.The most J had was four of five toys and her favorite was the empty spool of thread strung with a bright red cord. She could spend a whole day with that thing and some utensils from from the kitchen to bang together and make noise with. She talked to herself, laughed at something only she knew was funny - she was as happy as could be in control of her world and doing as she pleased with it. Her attention span for a new toy was limited to under five minutes and once she had figured what it was about she never came back to it. I bet the dance teacher's son feels the same way about his toys - he has them all figured out and they mean nothing special to him anymore.

That is precisely the reason the list of five in this article are such a big hit with kids - there is an infinite number of ways to interpret them and introduce them to their imagine play. The objects are not meant to be figured out and forgotten, instead they are there to be molded by the child's imagination to become what they are innately not. Reading this article right after my Disney trip was most refreshing.

All Disneyed Out

2011-11-27T15:56:00.009-05:00

Since we got married, DB has been trying to impress upon me the importance of taking J to Disney before she is too old to have never been there before. She turned ten recently and DB decided to go ahead and book us a trip being that I was not warming up to his idea briskly enough and "times are a wasting" as he likes to say. J has never been a Disney animation fan and she is not super adventurous either so I was not sure how well a six day theme park vacation would work out for her. She had the best time of her life and I am so glad DB pushed us to do this for her. But this post is not strictly about the Disney experience.

South of North Carolina, I started to notice something strange about public restrooms. They all had dispensers for an assortment of condoms and "surprise" sex toys and novelties. I don't recall seeing anything like this anywhere else I have traveled in this country. J usually likes to ask DB for a pack of gum at convenience stores and I squirmed with discomfort to see gum placed right next colorful packets of condoms. The adult themed restrooms set the stage for what I would encounter in Orlando but I did not know that then. DB and I had picked out a hotel that seemed reasonably priced and very close to the parks. We congratulated ourselves on finding a good deal on what was very short notice. As responsible parents we even verified that it was a safe and kid-friendly neighborhood.

That evening, when we reached Orlando, some kind of classic car parade was in progress and in the lane next to us were these cars painted in garish colors and set up on oversize wheels. From within them urban music with the most profane lyrics blared out for all to hear. The windows were rolled down and you could also see the music videos playing inside - even if we pretended J could not understand the words, the visuals left very little to the imagination. Police on horseback were trying to get the crowd under control and I was asking myself if this was not the dumbest decision DB and I had made since we became a team.

After what seemed like a lifetime of inching through the traffic we finally made it to the hotel. While DB stepped in to pick up our room keys, J and I watched two troopers arrest and handcuff a young man. J observed that it happened just like they show in the movies - she seemed very impressed by that. By this time, I was willing to lose our reservation and go any place else. DB assured me that the police presence assured us of safety - if I felt the same way the next morning, we would find another place. We decided to go out and grab some pizza - so desperate was our need to stretch and get some fresh air that we decided to brave the crowds outside. The sidewalks were a mess with horse poop everywhere - the cars had thankfully passed and there was one less thing to worry about. On the way back from dinner, we stopped at a store to pick up a gallon of drinking water. While paying for it I could not help notice the irony in pregnancy test kits right next to Disney key chains and yes, more condoms. If this was kid-friendly I was not sure what was not. I have never been so relieved to be back in a hotel room which was just about okay - we were too tired to care and glad to get some shut-eye.

We started with Magic Kingdom the next day and the week was a blur of sensory overload - the rides, the shows and and the food. J tasted Sushi, Ethiopian and Brazilian food for the first time. The weather was beautiful except for a sudden shower one evening while we were at Epcot. DB got sick from riding the Space Mission (Orange Team) and had to be taken to first aid to recuperate for a couple of hours. J said that she felt like she had lost her brain - I shocked us all by having a great time and feeling just fine. Each day, J surprised us by enjoying rides I never guessed she would. By day four she was showing signs of saturation but still soldiered along. I had to admit that Disney helped me decompress - completely. You cannot not be in the moment, enjoying the here and now while you are in its thrall.

I am glad we went - DB and I relaxed like we have not in a long time, J had fun like only a child of ten can have fun so it was perfect for her. I know I will never return to Disney again but it would be a miss to live in America and never have been to Disney.

Ego and Cry for Help

2011-11-10T21:31:00.000-05:00

In marriage, each partner must balance their ego with their unheard cries for help. I learned this in my first marriage and am re-learning long forgotten lessons another time now. In the early days of my marriage with DB would ask for me to do a few specific things to ease him into the marriage - small changes, small gestures of understanding and kindness for me but deeply significant in their impact to him. I let my ego get in the way of doing what I was being asked to. I heard him making demands instead of hearing his cries for help. I would be more than willing to help but I refused to meet any demands. Such is the nature of perception.

Each of us has a different way of reaching out for help from the one we love. For over a year DB appealed and I refused to comply because he was not talking the language I wanted him to talk in. Now he has given up and it is my turn to cry for help. His ego may be a little smaller than mine but it still makes its presence felt. I am not speaking the language that will appeal to his heart. As a result, he is holding back the help I am seeking just as I have for the longest time.

Ironically, now that he never mentions it again, I find myself doing all those little things he had so badly wanted me to do for such a long time. He notices, but it means a lot less now than it would have once. I am only now beginning to realize how much work it takes to hear and be heard effectively in a marriage. I wonder if things are not that much harder for both of us because we've been single and on our own for so long that any request to change from our partner feels like an imposition and our immediate reaction is to bristle. Being relationship-free for as long as we have both been make our communication skills with each other more than a little rusty. When you throw a little bit of ego in the mix - it makes for a potent combination.

Stranded at Search

2011-11-03T23:36:00.002-04:00

For the last couple of days, I've been wondering about the disappeared Advanced Search link on the Google homepage. At first I thought it was some kind of browser issue, so I refreshed it a few times, cleaned cache, cookies, history and all for good measure - nothing. So I've been looking and looking with my frustration mounting by the click and scroll.

Now two days later I find out that the link has been moved to the bottom of the page and it takes an extra click to get there. For a while now, I've had this feeling that Google is slowly losing its marbles - the ubiquitous + icon on websites absolutely creeps me out. There is nothing to "Like" about it as far as I am concerned. I hasten to check if Google is enforcing my endorsement of the website without my consent. Given the thing they pulled off with their launch of Buzz, I would certainly not put it past them.

Then there is this whole Hangout business that is as muddled in concept as it is in delivery. There is Google Offers trying to do be Groupon and I am sure there are many such bizarre experiments cooking in their labs that will sneak up on us when we least expect it. I could gripe a very long time about Google becoming disoriented and chaotic like Yahoo ; how this could be the beginning of the end but the advanced search link being moved to the bottom of page two is unconscionable unless it is some kind of perverse social experiment.

At any rate, I had switched over to Bing by this afternoon and was relieved to find the advanced search option clearly available where one might expect it. I think I will stay with Bing for a bit - the search results are much better than they were when I first checked it out. I don't much care for Google showing me my current location on the left when I am doing a search - I don't see why that is relevant, none of the other options make much sense either. There is sense of sophomoric and dysfunctional about all of the choices. Someone decided to throw in a bit of social and local into the mix - just because everyone else that's cool doing that stuff. Does not look like anyone is really driving this bus anymore - it has a life of its own. If that link does not return where it belongs, I don't think I am coming back to Google for search any time soon.

Hall of Mirrors

2011-10-28T19:56:00.003-04:00

If life expectancy is hereditary, mine could go either way. One side of my family lives into their 90s, the other has folks dropping off like flies in their 60s and 70s. Lately, I find myself thinking about the half-life mark - specially since DB and I got married. Somehow, having the path to the future defined, has brought in its wake, the need to stop, take stock and yes - self-flagellate. An urge to reconnect with long lost friends apparently comes with this particular territory. I wonder where S (my best friend) with is, how she is doing, if we could talk all night like we did in our college days, if we would have even one thing in common anymore - and I chide myself for letting my communication with S ebb away.

Not knowing the answers to those questions bothered me enough to begin a search. So easy in the time of Google and Facebook and yet so perilous. Now S is nothing if not notoriously private and so are many of our common friends. Finding S, I discover is no walk in the park. I don't know if she is now married and if she uses her husband's last name. My quest for S, however leads me into uncomfortable territory - I have to start looking up hubs in our social network hoping they will somehow lead me to her.

These are folks with two hundred plus friends (which sadly do not include S). Some faces have not changed that much, others have transformed beyond recognition. And that is the easy part - the devil is in the details; careers, spouses, kids, holidays and the endless stream of pictures with everyone in them smiling a hundred percent of the time. My quiet world feels the full force of the information overload. I begin to wonder how I have fared relative to my peers - on all counts. I fear I may have "gained the world and lost my soul" -I fear that I may not be high enough on the happiness quotient relative to my reference group - nothing else matters nearly as much.

I think back to the days of our early youth, we were very different then too. This was the "fun" crowd - they were about taking it easy and having a great time - work came only as an afterthought. Some of them were very bright and enterprising so it comes as no surprise that they are doing very well professionally. This was the crowd you hung out with when you wanted to chill. Things have not changed that much - in time, the moments have added up and online I get to see their life distilled - with its best, most shining moments on parade for the world to see. It is like being in a hall of mirrors - things are not exactly what they appear to be and yet nothing is fundamentally untrue.

As I swirled through the maze, it became evident that S would remain hidden by her invisibility cloak as would some of my other friends. If at some point in their lives, they felt the strange pressure that reaching half-life mark exerts, they may do what I tried - maybe we will connect then.

Interview with Kavita Parmar

2011-10-18T21:20:00.001-04:00

Several months ago, I received an email from The IOU Project inviting me to check out their website and get to know them and their concept. I was more than impressed with what I saw and absolutely fell in love with this short video (the 3 Minute Video link at the bottom left of their homepage will take you there too) that tells the story of IOU.

IOU brings tradition and technology together in many unique ways - the concept of a Trunk Show is one of them. It is described thusly :

Back in the day, when a fashion designer wanted to showcase a collection, he or she would take to the road with a heavy suitcase or trunk stuffed with goods and show off them off to friends. We let you do the same - but on the web. No heavy lifting required.

Instead of running a garden variety plug for them on this blog, I offered to interview Kavita Parmar, the Founder and Creative Director of IOU, and she most graciously accepted. You can tell she is passionate about her idea and has the energy it takes to bring dreams to fruition. I wish Kavita the very best and hope to chat with her again sometime in the future.

HC : How would you introduce the IOU Project to someone who has never heard about it ?

KP : I have 2 answers for that :

Mission - The IOU Project is born from the need to both empower the artisan and celebrate uniqueness using the full scope of modern technology. The idea is that the fashion business, when carried out with true transparency and authenticity, can elicit extraordinary reactions and foster a shared sense of responsibility from its customers, partners and suppliers – towards each other and the environment.

Business - The IOU Project is a social commerce website selling its own brand´s revolutionary mass customized apparel and accessories line while building it´s on line direct sales network.

HC : I love the 3 minute IOU Project video that introduces your concept. It is beautifully made ! You mention in it that the buyer is part of the process. Does that mean the buyer can design the piece they will buy ?

KP: Thank you am glad you enjoyed the film .When we mention the buyer being a part of the story we mean that they are visible to everyone in the chain as the artisans are. They can take a picture of themselves and link it to the product they have bought to complete the story , talk about themselves and even sell and promote the product through our Trunk Show Host model The artisans love to see who bought the piece they hand made. We don´t have the buyer designing but they can curate products on our site by becoming a trunk show host which is a great way to get involved and make some money in the process.
HC: Is the idea of IOU unique in the world of fashion ?

KP :We have not seen anything executed like this exactly. Taking heritage artisan sources and working with designers , other artisans and technology to create a modern easy to wear pieces that have full traceability and transparency. But it is clearly a trend as there are many designers and labels who are becoming more and more careful with where and how they source their products. There is a clear demand from the consumer to know more.

HC. The one thing I noticed was the lack of variety in the fabrics. When one thinks of India, the sheer profusion of weaving styles and patterns is what comes to mind. Is this intentional ?

KP : We started the project with the Madras weavers as it is not a small feat to document and give full traceability back to each individual in the supply chain.We wanted to start with one artisan group to ensure we were thorough and also to start with a clear identity . We are already working with other artisan groups in India and overseas to create other product lines going forward.
HC: Why do you think the price point of the your products would be compelling for buyers who have a large number of options to choose from - even if they were looking for something niche and not mass produced ?

KP: Our price points are the same as J Crew and Abercrombie and Fitch which are brands with mass distribution and appeal. At the same price as those brands you as a consumer can have a totally unique piece with an incredible story that is truly helping preserve a traditional craft, we believe that to be a compelling argument

HC: Would you consider sellers on Etsy your competition ?

KP : We don't think we are like etsy , we are more about mass customisation, about aggregating artisan small productions and creating collaborations to address the mass market.We are big fans of ETSY though

HC: What role is social media playing in getting the word out about your fashion line ?

KP: Fundamental, we have been a grassroots movement and the idea has spread as individuals with whom it resonated have taken it upon themselves to move it forward and talk about it. We are incredible grateful and the participation of our customers and Facebook followers has been very important. There are over 400,000 blog entries 1,5 million Google citations of the IOU Project . There is still a long way to go but we are very happy with the journey so far

HC: What are some of the biggest operational challenges you face ?

KP : Right now it is funding to keep up the momentum as we have made a huge investment in this first phase to get the project up and running and it has all been personal. There is a huge amount of interest from big brands who want to create co-branded products and artisan groups who want to work with us to create new product lines. we are a young and small company so keeping up the demand on time and resources just with this is a big challenge.

HC: Where do you see IOU being five years out ?

KP: That it becomes and industry standard to create product with full transparency and traceability that will give its due to everyone involved. That the IOU project becomes a global brand with many many artisan groups involved. There is so much heritage to preserve , so many people whose way of life is threatened in the world. As you mentioned just in India alone the numbers of hand-loom weaving communities is immense.

HC: What has been the response of the artisans to this venture and how are they spreading the word in their community ?

KP: They are incredibly proud to be part of this project. They have never been made to be such a protagonist in this process. These are very skilled and fiercely independent people, they want to preserve their culture and way of life as they work for themselves , all they wanted is to earn a little bit more and not have to compete with cheap machine made imports.

HC: Is IOU strictly about "woven in India" or are you open to considering weavers elsewhere in the world ?

KP: The IOU Project is not about a country , we started in India as I am an Indian and the rich cultural heritage of India was there for me to begin with but we are already working with Artisans in Japan for our real Indigo hand woven selvedge denim which you can see in our current collection. We are being contacted by many artisan groups worldwide and we intent to follow this dream to as far as we can.

Interview with Devajyoti Roy

2011-10-16T17:41:00.002-04:00

Devajyoti Roy is an artist with an unique take on contemporary India. As one reviewer describes it "Though realistic in terms of theme and proportion, the paintings assume metaphorical dimension if seen from the perspective of colour-scheme and use of symbols."

What I found most interesting about his paintings is how he is able to convey expression and communication between subjects of his painting when the faces are color filled blanks without any features. What the viewer make of that expression or the message being conveyed could well be a Rorschach test. Case in point might be this painting titled Rendezvous

It turns out that Mr Roy is a reader of this blog and that is an honor for me.

For any readers who live or will happen by Mumbai between Nov 14 - Nov 20 2011, they can check out an exhibition of his paintings at the Jehangir Art Gallery.

HC : What is uniquely Indian about your art ?

DR: India is having cultural exchanges with far flung countries since time immemorial and our folk art, crafts all show influences of many schools of art from all over the world. And till recently, Indian artists had been experimenting with the predominant schools of western art quite unabashedly. It is only while choosing subject matters, that our artists remained uniquely Indian.

Yet there had been a few artists like Jamini Roy and later MF Husain, who had shown originality in formative renderings as well.

Development of a new formative style requires development of a language of expression. In my paintings this language is largely developed from the popular iconography of India. You must have noticed pink-coloured Ganesha idols, or the depiction of Lord Ram in blue. No one ever questions as how can a person have such colours. We just accept them. Thus you see, it is possible to use your own colours of fantasy and yet create a comprehensible image.

Nonetheless colours do have their own chemistry and to create a comprehensible image, one has to develop that grammar. Pseudo-realism is all about that grammar. Its origin is Indian, its grammar, perhaps not.

HC: What is your signature - I mean how would someone recognize the artist from your paintings ?

DR: It was in 2002, that had first introduced the Pseudo-realist forms into my paintings and it is now almost 9 years that I am continuing with the style. The Indian art market took some time to get used to this new genre of art but I think people have now started accepting it.

HC : Among modern day Indian artists, who would you consider your inspiration ?

DR: Jamini Roy is one artist who I admire a lot. At a time, when most Indian artists were experimenting with mainly western styles like cubism and impressionism, here was one man who could develop an uniquely original style of his own. Again for similar reasons, I admire MF Husain, Anish Kapoor and Subodh Gupta.

But while I admire these artists, I am not influenced by them or their styles. In fact the very idea is not to get influenced and do your own.

HC. How easy is it for a young person like yourself establish themselves as a artist in modern day India ?

DR: Establishing in any creative field always takes time. But the Indian art market is becoming very matured and there is a genuine demand for good works.
The very profile of an Indian art collector is also changing. Unlike in the past, the new collector has good knowledge of what is happening the world over, and has a mind of her own. She does not necessarily buy what her gallery sells her but what she herself thinks is right.

Everywhere around I see people really willing to learn. This had not been so even a decade ago. I have always enjoyed interacting with the new age art collector, who is passionate, questioning and confident.

HC: Have you considered using software such a Photoshop to create art - or perhaps digitally re-imagine what you have created on canvas ?

DR : There is nothing wrong in using modern technological tools in creating artworks. Nonetheless, I prefer the traditional methods of sketching, and then painting with brush.

HC : Who mention irony as one of things you try to convey subtly through your art - do you often find viewers getting your message ?

DR: Of course. I am a prominent obituarist of Post-modernism and shun all kinds of ambiguities in art.

Pseudorealism is a style, where something abstract and unreal gets the appeal of reality. The idea is thus to use abstraction to create a comprehensible imagery. But the key word here is ‘comprehensible’.

That is hallmark of my kind of art.

HC : What advise do you have some someone who wants to become an artist but does not have the ability to get formal training ?

DR : There are both advantages and disadvantages of formal training. The primary advantage of formal training is that it teaches you all the skills of art in one place. In a formal art school, you also get to learn about art-history, philosophy, etc all under one roof.

But the disadvantage of art schools is that they tend to take away your originality. That is why some of the best known artists in India had benefited by not being in any school. This includes such illustrious names Ravindranath Tagore, Ramkinker Baij, Amrita Shergill, MF Hussain and FN Souza.

So I do not think, not having formal training is much of a handicap. One has to be persistent in what one is doing. It is true for any profession, art included.

Random Inspiration

2011-10-10T22:03:00.002-04:00

The Child

Some days, I just have to keep my ears open for inspiration. Having the day off today, I was able to take J and her friend A to the museum to check out a couple of art installations I had read about in the local newspaper. A is a very polite child but it is impossible to get a reaction other than "I don't know" when asked for an opinion. So, I had know idea if she enjoyed the outing, if the galleries we went to were the ones she was interested in or if the lunch we ate at the cafe was what she really wanted.

So imagine my astonishment when we sat down in the lobby on some Neinkamper chairs and A said "In my dream house, I must have these chairs - I simply love them". The passion in her voice touched something deep inside me - for a ten year old to have a dream home and imagine what it might look like is not entirely unexpected but coming from someone who almost always says " I don't know", it was very special. Beneath the gentle and unassuming surface, I imagine there is a lot of steel and resolve - A might be one of those who tend to their dreams diligently in solitude until they came to fruition. From being frustrated with her at not helping with any decision around their day, I went to having respect for her.

The Adult

DB is given to mulling over things for a while before he is able to fully articulate what he is thinking. Inevitably, the insights come when you least expect it. Today, while running a technical issue at work by me, he segued into our relationship and had this to say about what ails us. "The change I am asking of you is a change in the pattern of thinking about things. What you are doing instead, is reacting to each instance I am upset about and correcting that one thing when tens of other issues similar to it remain unchanged. That is frustrating and tiring both of us - I see no hope and you see no end to the criticisms. You need to change the algorithm and not the data sets - that way your reaction will follow the same pattern in all instances and you won't have to solve each instance as its own problem" We have had a million variants of this discussion from the time we got married. However, this is the first time, I felt like we were close to a solution.

Burst Bubble

2011-10-08T10:12:00.002-04:00

I have been in the workforce for what seems like a very long time though my "dream" retirement age will likely not be met . In all this time, the one accomplishment that I am truly proud of is my ability to manage difficult people and situations without letting it impact my quality of life. I did not come to this state naturally or over-night - years of hard-work and perseverance got me there - or so I thought.

A week ago, that accomplishment took a real drubbing at the hands of a co-worker. He is our on-site technical lead from one of India's largest outsourcing companies. They have over thousand resources working for this client and have the muscle that goes with an engagement that size. This man found it impossible to accept that he had to report to me - a woman, a desi and a local consultant (as opposed to a full time employee of the client). It was a combination that was too much for him to stomach - he simply did not feel that I had any authority to ask him anything about his work. I brought my years of experience dealing with insubordination to bear on this situation. He went back and forth between aggressive and compliant behavior, we had some process gains but the system continued to grow more and more unstable. Every other week, a major fire drill would be required to keep the engine running.

I was brought into the role that I am in to provide technical direction and mentoring as needed - specially when a system bottleneck is hurting the team's overall operating efficiency. To that end, every recommendation I made, he met with vehement opposition if not outright rejection and continued to grow the patch-work of hastily put together fixes that has now brought the system to its knees. He is trained in a set of tools but has no foundational knowledge of technology to buttress it. He finds himself placed in the position of a technical architect /lead designer when his skills are more compatible with a mid-level developer. To compensate of his deficiencies, he works almost round the clock, micro-manages the offshore team and makes it impossible for anyone to get past him and to the issues to see if they can help.

On that day, in the middle of an IM conversation, the man walks up to my desk in a physically aggressive manner and talks in a tone of voice that I have seen used by domestic help in India during altercations with their employers. This is simply not the standard of behavior I have seen in my workplace in all these years - here in America or back in India. I was completely dumb-founded and too afraid to engage him in a discussion not knowing what he may decide to do if provoked any further. This was the third such incident and I felt not taking any action would would embolden him to a dangerous level.

I reported the incident to my management and the whole process of resolution was set in motion. In net, I was made to feel like a hysterical woman who thanks to an over-active imagination had read way more into the situation than was warranted. The Indian company told me that this man did not owe me an apology because he did not feel that he had been out of line. I would now need to find someone else to act as the go-between to get work done through him - they had asked him to stop all interaction with me immediately. The client does not want to get involved directly because the neither of us are full time employees with them. So I have now become the official problem - the woman who failed to manage the man she was required to manage and has turned that failure into a inconvenience for all concerned. It was a well orchestrated move and everyone was complicit in it - including the client who shied away from taking any direct action knowing fully well there has been a pattern of aggressive, unprofessional behavior for months. Then man got away from all of this looking like the victim and with no consequence at all.

Not only has this incident burst my bubble about my ability to manage tough people and situations, it has also made me realize what my girlfriends have told me many times before - that the moment a woman shows signs of weakness, she becomes the pariah in the workplace. No one wants to have anything to do with her or her imaginary issues. This is the modern day, workplace equivalent of being made to wear the Scarlet Letter. If you feel like you are being discriminated against of being treated differently, it will be chalked up to imagination because nothing is really being said or done to me. Everyone wishes this thing had never happened and more than that they wish I had not started all this stuff up and caused disruption to the normal order of things. The man who offended me has the support of the vendor who knows the client will not rock the boat too much given how deeply entrenched they are in their organization. They want enough time to pass so I move on or get over it so they can continue to go about their business as usual. For my satisfaction, they have left the incident unresolved.

Remarriage Lessons

2011-10-05T15:32:00.009-04:00

In the past year, several readers of this blog have asked me to share my experience of being married for the second time. I have blogged off and on about it over time, but this attempts to bring some of the key themes together.

Being Owed Happiness

This is my experience with second marriage and it may not be true for everyone else. Ever so often, I find myself falling into the trap of "being owed happiness". I waited long enough for this man, ergo he must be the answer to all that ails me. Why must I still be expected to work on finding my own happiness or put forth the effort to make the relationship a happy one. I already did my time in my previous marriage - so it is not fair to be given anything but a perfect marriage this time.

It is as if the long, frustrating and often hopeless waiting to get to this state entitles me to happiness without any further ado. When that does not readily happen - I decide I am the injured party and DB has a responsibility to make it right. It would be okay if I could just let it go being injured and aggrieved - I also get infuriated at him for not doing his part. It is not often that I pause to consider what he might expect from me and if I am fulfilling his vision of a perfect union.

The Insecure Child

We have only one child (mine) between the two of us, so I have it a lot easier than a lot of couples who marry for the second time and need to blend their families together. Even so, there are challenges and complications due to the presence of a child. Mine was acutely insecure for several months into our marriage. On the one hand she had this compulsive need make sure DB was taking care of Mommy and treating her right, on the other hand, when she saw us happy together she grew afraid of losing her mother to a relative stranger.

Out of the blue she could burst into tears and shut herself in her room. Her suffering was hard for us to see but she would be inconsolable - in a heartbeat I would have gone from being the center of her universe to being her biggest enemy. I got her a notebook and encouraged her to write about how she was feeling - not hold anything back no matter how hurtful of offensive they may be towards DB and I . I told her I would not read her journal until she was ready to share it with me. This exercise proved to be quite cathartic for her and in a few months the emotions were not quite so out of control.

She wanted DB as a father but could not accept him in the role of my husband. There was love and hate for him in equal measure.The two forces worked in equal and opposite directions bringing a lot of stress into the family. It took a lot of reassurance from both of us and me demonstrating to her that her position in my life had not diminished in any way. In time, that alleviated her sense of insecurity. DB would be the understanding adult for the most part and allow her emotions to play out but every once in a while he would grow petulant and feel left out of our "family unit" of two. It was left up to me to be the level-headed, peace-making adult who had to cast aside her own feelings and work on restoring harmony in the family. Between meeting the demands of J and DB, I felt completely worn out.

Losing Friends and Isolation

Both my husband and I have shed several friendships in the wake of our marriage. On his end, these were friends that had felt compassion or pity for him because he was floundering partner-less and without specific direction in life - for a very long time. He was one of those guys they had pegged as remaining single for life. While they had all started out together, these friends had left him far behind in achieving life's milestones. By inviting him into their families, they got an opportunity to feel better about themselves and rejoice in their superior standing in life. DB for his part appreciated being made a part of their lives and having someplace to go for the holidays. It was an arrangement that worked out well for everyone concerned.This pity-fest had been going on for years and all at once my presence ended it.

I had been a feel good project for several of my girlfriends - both married and single. They could do little things to help me out, reduce the burden of my responsibilities as a single mom without inconveniencing themselves seriously. By ceasing to be single, I had taken away their opportunity to be good Samaritans and they were quick to dump me as well. I came to the sad and sobering realization that these "friends" really did not understand the person I was or have much interest in her for that matter. So once the circumstances changes and my project worthiness was gone, they found out that the friendship was non-existent.

In net, we are relatively friendless and in need of building a social life all over again - the very idea is irksome. Some days, we don't even know where to begin - everyone we know, has friends that go back decades - we just cannot fit into their social network. Then there are much younger people who are still settling in, getting know other families like their own - we have nothing in common with that crowd either. From each of us being alone in our two separate islands, we have come together on one and are alone there together. A new relationship is never helped by social isolation and yet that is a force we have to contend with in addition to everything else.

Parents

We have found out that parents get used to us being single and dependent on them a lot more than they would have otherwise been. As much as they would like for our lives to return to normalcy and for us to find a life partner, they are often unable to relinquish what they had from us in the years past. My mother (when she visited) for instance ran my household like it was her own, without any interference from anyone. I was too desperate (and grateful) for the help to question her authority or jurisdiction. She is now failing to recognize that her role has changed and she needs to play a very minor part in my family. We are all finding out there is a significant gap between her ability to accept DB in theory and accept him in reality.

Communication and Relationship

We both except the other person to communicate clearly what they want. Yet for the smallest things to take so much back and forth tires us out. We have the social roles and responsibilities of a couple with a ten year old child, when the marriage in not even two years old. What would come naturally to a couple of our vintage, takes a lot of doing for us to accomplish.

With that small tasks become Herculean efforts and we are both left emotionally exhausted. After having so much energy expended in setting appropriate expectation for mundane things, we have none left to work on the much more serious and arduous business of cementing a new relationship - it inevitably gets pushed to the back-burner. The initial spark does not have a fighting chance to blossom into a steady glow that we can count on for life - the forces of responsibility constantly work to extinguish it. Unless we stay vigilant and continue to make it our priority we could get ourselves into trouble.

At the end of a year and a half of marriage, we find that we segued into an old marriage immediately after courtship. The honeymoon period couples enjoy after their first marriage just did not happen for us.DB found himself thrust head first into a domestic situation where the show had to go on - the child had to be taken care of, sent to school, taken to her activities and somewhere in in middle of all that he had to form a romantic relationship with the mother. Add to that a couple of job changes, relocation and a buying a home and what little energy anyone may have for relationship building would quickly dissipate. Most people who meet us cannot tell that our marriage is so new or that J and DB are not biologically related. While that may be a testament to the hard-work that has gone into forming this family, it is also a telling sign of what we are missing out on as a couple.

There is a certain edginess and brittleness even about a single mother - she has no choice but to be bold, assertive and independent. She has to make the calls about her household and children. There is no one else - often not even a sounding board. Adversity can take the most vulnerable and dependent among us and turn them into a force of nature. That is the personality I presented to DB when I first met him - it was not as much a matter of presentation as it was the point in time truth about my nature. He found that strength and confidence incredibly attractive.

As a wife, I have failed to tend to the positive aspects of that nature - like some women stop taking care of their physical fitness and appearance, I ceased to worry about being the fittest I could be mentally and emotionally. I was too relieved to have respite to be concerned about what effect my "laziness" was having my own well being and on the relationship. In response, DB did not feel the need to be all that he had been when we first met - in his case his physical health bore the brunt of the resentment and disappointment he felt. Often, with these things the damage happens first and the epiphany comes about much later. I am still learning to curb my stubborn streak and not turn this into a staring contest. And that is easier said than done.

Feeling Normal

I never subscribed to the idea that a single person or a single parent is any less or different from a married person. I would go out of my way to prove to myself that I was alright and that my child was not being deprived of a "normal" life. Yet, there always this nagging sensation of being an outsider to normal (in my case suburban) society. I had nothing in common with the stay-at-home PTA moms. I still have very little in common with them but having a husband affords me a small entry into their world.

Similarly, having a child makes it easier for my husband to be the "regular" daddy when they run errands together or go out play tennis. He does not have to be the guy that comes alone to brunch every Sunday - he has a ten year old her can take along if he wanted to. Suddenly the waitresses are all smiles and friendly - he is welcome into the "normal" fold. He is the kind of dad they appreciate - bonding with his little girl over pancakes, milkshake and hash browns. Normalcy is a pretty big deal for someone who has been on the fringe for as long as we have.

Figurative Loss

2011-10-04T20:35:00.001-04:00

Recently, I have suffered some figurative losses. You would think that not being material or tangible they may hurt less but in fact, it can be felt just as strongly if not more. Being in that frame of mind, I found these lines from an article by Olivia Harrison particularly poignant :

"Tragedy is much more of an adventure than joy. I am not saying joy is over-rated. But happiness is fleeting; it exists in the present. Tragedy casts a long and persistent shadow with the power to dim even the most perfect moment. It also has the potential to follow us to the end. We don't stop to analyze happiness but when grief and strife occur we recount the events leading up to it over and over. It wakes us from our sleep as we try to figure out how and where it all went wrong."

She writes this in the context of her husband's George Harrison's imminent death but the idea of raking through the content of tragedy over and over again to make sense of it transfers to the kind of figurative loss I have experienced. There was something then that is gone now. When it was there, it was important but I spent no energy to analyze what I had and what it meant for me. In losing it, indeed the perfectness of my present moment is greatly dimmed.

J's Decade

2011-09-18T15:02:00.002-04:00

For as long as I can remember, big changes have happened to me once every decade. The birth of J coincided with the end of my first marriage - those two incidents set in motion a cascading wave of events whose tumult is only beginning to subside now. Each year on J's birthday, I would find myself measuring how far into my "decade of strife" I was and in my heart I knew her tenth would be unlike any before or after. It would spell the symbolic end.

Call it what you will, determination, wishful thinking, visualizing the future as I would have it be in my dream - some combination of all that, but I visited that tenth birthday many, many times in the past. With each visit, I refined what was in and what was not, who was included and who was not not - it would be the year when things would be made "right" by J.

It would be the year when the waiting for Godot would be over, we could come out of the "phase" that we were in. I was deeply resentful of anyone who so much as suggested that my life may be subject to some limitations being a single mom, but could not deny to myself that J and I lived a little on the fringe - not entirely in the conventional way.

To that end, I would become a nervous wreck the week of J's birthday party - nothing I ever did felt quite "right"; I certainly had no ability to plan or anticipate the unexpected. Yet to prove that J and I were doing just as fine as any other family, I would get bent out of shape trying to host a birthday party for her that conveyed "normalcy". My anxiety of social situations absolutely peaked around her birthday - getting the day over with was all I could think about. Yet I did not want to disappoint her or have her sense how I was feeling - that would be unfair.

This year, DB stepped in and made the day seem easier than it has in nine years. We had seven of J's friends over. The had chips and salsa, pizza and ice-cream cake along with pink lemonade and ginger ale. We hosted a bunch of chatty little girls happy to play hide and seek and lounge around the big TV in the basement - no one wanted to leave when the parents came to pick them up. There was absolutely nothing complicated about what we did. We had no theme for the party, no games or activities organized, we cooked nothing - and yet everyone had a great time.

In years past, I did a lot more and only feel stressed and dissatisfied with the outcome - the more I strove to give the impression that I had everything under control and could pull of what a stay at home mom could (single-handedly no less), the more contrived the results would be. The combination of a home and a partner made such a world of difference - the two things that had been missing for the the past decade. J had a "regular" tenth birthday that had her surrounded by family and friends in her own home - just as I had always wanted it to be. For once, I did not have to try too hard.

New Meaning

2011-09-11T17:31:00.002-04:00

Read this analysis of the lyrics of Norwegian Wood and what is says about Lennon made for a fun lunch hour break a few days ago. To think that the words of a song could be taken to mean something so far removed from what a listener may glean from it casually is quite remarkable.

Maybe such is the fate of any piece of art - there is the original intent (if any at all) of the creator , the spin of the punditry and the meaning conveyed to each layperson who comes in to contact with. I will find it hard to listen to this song again without paying attention to the words and the meaning someone has ascribed to them - specially because it is so far removed from anything I would have imagined. In a sense, this song is spoiled for me.

Idefinitely Wounded

2011-08-19T20:18:00.000-04:00

Since she was a baby, J would unaccountably turn delerious with joy - her exurberance was so contagious that it was impossible for anyone to feel blue around her. Today was one of those days. I pray that she always has the ability to be happy for no reason at all.

Reading this Atlantic article about the correlation between early adversity and depression, planted a little seed of fear in my heart. J has known more than her fair share of "early adversity". I was so consumed by doing all that it took to provide for her basic needs and stay gainfully employed that I was never able to be a real mother to her. My attention span for her was non-existent, it took very little provocation for me to become really angry and I never felt well rested. She learned to entertain herself, make do with very little and make the most of what few opportunities came her way. She learned to survive and thrive in a situation that was less than ideal.

With DB coming into our lives, it fell on J once again to cope with change and uncertainty and all things considered, she did remarkably well. In the last several months, my attention has been divided between a new spouse, career transitition and home buying. J adjusted to my (and our) circumstances as she always has. Today, I paused to wonder what the cost of that adjustment might have been. Seeing her being irrationally exurberant today was a reminder of my responsibility - she has a precious gift that I have to protect and keep out of harm's way. If I failed, I would be identifintely wounded.

Twice Shy

2011-07-31T19:59:00.006-04:00

In one year of being married once again, I have come to realize that when people such as DB and I come together in a second marriage, most of our energies are expended in navigating minefields. A certain tone of voice, a gesture, a mannerism, food habit or what have you will trigger a bad memory. Suddenly, the past will come into the foreground with vengeance, completely obscuring what little you have built together with pain-staking effort. Like a friend of ours said, a new marriage (even it is the second time for both) is a like a messy, kicking, screaming infant and we would be well advised to treat it as such instead of expecting adult behavior from it.

Yet, more frequently than not, we expect the other person to "know better" given the lessons learned from mistakes past. We expect adult behavior from the bawling, unreasonable infant that is our marriage. When expectations are not met we are quick to indulge in self-pity, give up on the partner's ability to ever change. We blame the other for errors and omissions made in their previous marriage. What is more we accuse the other of going down the same destructive path because they are incapable of learning ; unwilling to change. Then the moment passes, tempers cool, reason, love and compassion return. After the clouds lift, I am able to see the many amazing changes DB has made in the past year, he sees that I am almost everything he wanted his wife to be.

Post epiphany we are in rapprochement mode - and life is good once again. The days flow languidly like a brook meandering through quiet woods - until we hit the next obstacle. We want to believe this is no different from any new marriage but we do know that it is - indeed in very significant ways. Every marriage takes time to be broken in - the first time around, you are both willing to do a lot more to make it happen, you have many dreams and the energy to fulfill them. By when one marriage ends, the years of being alone are over and you start over, a lot of the energy has already been expended. You have the compelling need to make up for lost time and pretend your life had always been "on track". What is more, you want to prove to yourself that you have wisdom you once lacked and this time there would be no mistakes.

That is the narrative you bring into all your social relationships as well. So I'd rather not have to explain why DB, J and I have different last names. I would rather pretend that DB has been in J's life forever and not want to talk about the time in her life when he was not around. It is as if the strength of this marriage and our newly formed family unit is based on how "old" and "comfortable" it looks to the world outside. It gives us the much need affirmation to pass for a family that has grown organically instead of having been cobbled together. We don't want to come across as still trying to figure things out, not having our act quite together yet, we want to look self-assured and confident with answers to everything figured out already. The pressures of those largely unrealistic goals come into the relationship and strain it even more.

Every day this past year has been a learning experience for me. We both thought having been through a marriage once before would count for something this time. That experience as we are finding out is more counterproductive and disruptive than anything else. Time will tell if it contributed anything positive to our union.

Having to De-annonymize

2011-07-30T14:18:00.007-04:00

I have always trod with caution when it comes to social networking. My blog has presence all over - Facebook to Foursquare but personally I stay out of everything. My buddy C takes annonymization to extremes only alpha nerds can take things to. He does not have a rewards card for any store, he usually pays with cash and makes sure he does not follow any kind of "buying pattern". His goal in life is not allow himself to become a data point for retailers today and context brokers in the future.

I am curious about what Google+ is trying to do with the idea of Circles for non-intersecting areas of people's lives. A step in the right direction certainly but with their track record, with the whole Buzz episode I would be skeptical for a long time to come. Specially when their competition believes that de-annonymization is necessary and almost inevitable.

Anonymity on the internet has been of particular significance to me. More than ten years ago, when I desperately needed help understanding what was going in my marriage and the chances of me being able to work through all that ailed it, having an anonymous email address saved my life. I did not have the courage to open up and share the deepest, darkest secrets of my life with anyone who knew me. I did not have the ability to get professional help without my putting myself in harm's way. More than anything else I was very afraid - I cloak of anonymity gave me the courage I sorely lacked.
I knew that not telling everything in the most painful detail would make it impossible for anyone to understand my situation or be able to help me out. Using my assumed name, I reached out a large cross section of people - psychiatrists, university professors, therapists, counselors and yes even the occasional psychic who promised to read the stars in my horoscope .

It was a desperate cry for help and the response was quite overwhelming. A lot of people wrote me back with their insights into the situation, recommended what they thought would be the best course of action based on what information I had provided. A lot of them observed my message was brutally honest - exactly as I had wanted for it to be.

Between the dozen or so responses I got from a wide cross section of people I had reached out to, I was able to see a the couple of distinct themes that helped my chart the course of the rest of my life. If I had not reached out anonymously, a lot of these wonderful people may not have been able to respond with the candor they did with. What is more, I would not have been able to muster the courage to present them with the unvarnished, unflattering and ugly truth. We had made a connection between one human heart and the other which made every other barrier fall way.

For many years, this blog has been where I was able to share what I thought, events in my life that I felt had potential to offer someone somewhere a little something of value. Over the years, many readers have reached out to me anonymously, shared secrets that would never have with someone they knew in real life, thanked me for writing something that touched them very deeply. In a sense, I used my blog as a way to give back what I was given in a time of great crisis. If I had to de-annonymize myself or required anyone who wrote to me to do so, it would break the very foundation on which this can all work.

Randi Zuckerberg, demonstrates a staggeringly limited comprehension of the human condition when she makes her case of stripping anonymity online.“People behave a lot better when they have their real names down. … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.” In every age, the media of social communication and interaction have lent themselves to a variety of abuse - it is no different now. Anonymity is not an invention or artifact of the internet or social media. To suggest stripping it online and "exposing" people is somehow for the greater good is disingenuous at best.

Minimal

2011-07-22T22:33:00.003-04:00

Recently, we were at an art exhibition where I saw a tiny oil painting depicting two runaway slaves hiding in Dismal Swamp. The most amazing thing was the clear expression of fear on their faces when in fact the artist had not drawn a single facial feature. The figures were too small for that amount of detail. Whether you stood inches away from the picture or a feet away, you could not fail to notice the two tiny figures cowering in terror. Of all the paintings I saw that day, this one was my favorite. Reading about this extreme pointillism version of Monalisa reminded me of that picture. In this case, a very famous painting has been reduced to its basic color palette and because of how familiar we are with it, there is that element of recognition - you can see the form of Monalisa where she does not exist. I wonder how it works with paintings like the one I saw at the exhibition - a faceless face conveying a full range of emotion.

Both seem to be about minimalism but in completely different ways - the Monalisa print in 170 colored dots takes away everything but the colors of the original, the other is about a detailing the atmosphere to invoke the desired emotion but stripping it away from the subject who should have borne it.

Unguent Tide

2011-07-20T14:32:00.002-04:00

In the season of give,
the tide had nowhere to turn.
It continued to pour out love,
covered the beloved
in hot, urgent kisses.
It craved to be held and touched,
- the angst of its spate eased.
Having found love at last,
it missed it's turn to ebb.
At the season's peak,
the unguent stench filled
the beloved's pores.
They were drowning.
The heady mix of spice
and juice made the stomach
churn. The kisses lost
their fever, embraces
their heat. The beloved
reaches out in the dark
seeking out those places
once so ready, bursting
with life now gone dry.

The Rain Came

2011-07-15T19:46:00.001-04:00

When rain splashes on my head
I don’t run for cover.
It is not what I do in rain.
I soak in it, let the damp
seep into my bones.
I need the cleansing
The chill shakes me out,
giving many lost years back
to redo as I might in hindsight.
Pair later or not at all,
have my worldly goods fill
no more than a backpack,
travel where my heart took me,
make love and friends on the way.
There is the matter of motherhood.
A dream that chased after me
furiously – had every baby
coo, gurgle and smile at me,
rush into my harboring arms
like they had come home
where they belonged.
And each time, there was
a dull ache in my empty womb
that had to be filled
with life and purpose.
Then the rain came
and with it three men.
The first with an umbrella and embrace
The second with the first kiss of my life
The third with remonstrance for getting wet.

Elephants and Dragons

2011-07-14T20:46:00.001-04:00

Ten years ago, around this time of year, I made an important decision - I was going to leave my husband. My daughter would be born a couple of months later. We would continue pretending to be a family until she was twelve weeks old and then she and I would leave. That was the beginning of a decade of strife, impermanence, uncertainty and angst. My marriage was still new when I bailed out – less than three years old and we did not own a home. During that time, I had always feared the rainy day and saved like a squirrel. When the rain came pouring down, I was grateful to have the resources to go solo with an infant.

For the first time in my life, I will have a home. DB, J and I are planning the big move coming up. We come to this point in our lives from very different places. For him, it is about making up for lost time – he wants to leapfrog to where his peers are in their lives without having put the twenty years to reach there. For my daughter, this event signals the transition from transience to permanence – something she has waited all her life to see happen. We are about to become a “regular” family that lives in a "real" house, has play dates and birthday parties there , the neighbors don’t holler when the kids go stomping up and down the stairs and there will be a backyard – her world would finally become "normal" (at least in her limited world view)

For me it is about the most expansion I have experienced in my life. I had grown used to living very minimally, planning for no more than a few months at a time – putting away as much as I could for the dread rainy day and my child’s future. Most importantly, I was not tethered to anything – place, job or relationship. I feel like being ejected head first from a dark tunnel into blinding sunlight – a near birth experience if there is such a thing. Suddenly, I feel the full weight of commitment – of making decisions for decades and a lifetime when all I have capacity for is six months. Even marrying again was not as unnerving as home buying is turning out to be. In a sense I am trading my financial security and mobility for things that I don’t know I am really ready for.

The marriage is now more real than ever before – it is no longer the commingling of two apartments into one and the constant jostling for space. Our battlegrounds had been in the closet, the cluttered living room, the missing room where we could get some alone time, the kitchen and the bathrooms – nothing was big enough for the both of us. We had grown too used to having the space alone and sharing just does not come easy. The problem of room will soon be history – if anything we will have too much of it.

The house will draw us out into the suburban life so many other families of our vintage live – unlike them who have done this for ten or twenty years, it would be the first time for us. I don’t have the excuse of “only temporary” anymore to run away from issues that have remain unresolved for a while. Once the dust settles there will not be another big dragon to slay – that is when the elephants in the room will want to stand up and be counted.

Mostly, I dread my lack of preparation for that day which is probably right around the corner. The decade of strife is finally over and I realize that I have lost the skills to thrive in a time of peace – I need those elephants to deny and dodge ;dragons to chase to get me feeling alive. I very much want to keep the biggest elephant in the room around because he shields me from a lot of things I am not prepared to deal with it. If he insists on being acknowledged, I will likely be off dragon slaying to avoid making eye contact.

The Android Infuse 4G Experience

2011-07-13T23:19:00.003-04:00

I have been using the iPhone 4 for about a year now and it was my first foray into the world of smartphones. As expected, switching over from my Motorola Razr to the iPhone fundamentally changed my relationship with my cellphone. Recently, I had the pleasure of reviewing the Android Infuse 4G and was very impressed by its capabilities – it reset and recalibrated what I thought I could expect from a smartphone.

Google Voice Actions - Absolutely loved the idea of being able to search, text, email and call by saying what I want done. Both my daughter J and I tried it out. I do not have an American accent and she does. We both found it really hard to get Android to understand what we were saying. So the calls went to the wrong person (if at all), the email typed out completely incorrect and so on.

We tried ennunciating each word, pausing between them, speaking loud – all to no avail. We did get lucky one out of ten times but it was hard to understand what worked versus what did not. In short, high expectations from the feature but not impressed by the results. If this had worked as half as well as the demo promised I would be sold on the Android.

USB Connectivity – Being able to copy any file via USB on to the Android is huge plus over the iTunes interface iPhone requires for file movement between computer and phone. I tried this a few times but could not get my computer with Windows XP installed on it to recognize the device. Maybe a little more patience and digging around would have helped.

Email - Did not find the Combined Inbox (combining email from all my mailboxes) so useful. I was not able to see my mailboxes seperately because the drop down listing containing my mailboxes would not respond when I touched it. I could not find options like Reply All or Forward.

Navigation and Maps – Meets and even exceeds expectations. I already love Google Maps and use it all the time. The logical next step is to have it on Android with voice prompts. Being able to speak my destination into the phone via Google Voice Action would have made it sweeter.

Interface – Exceeds expectation. The bigger screen is very helpful whether you are reading or watching a movie. Both color clarity and sound quality are impressive. I can actually see myself watching a full length movie on this device but on an iPhone a two to three minute video clip is about all I can do comfortably. For the road warrior types with a Netflix account this could be a perfect way to take in a new release while waiting for a connecting flight.

Camera – Exceeds expectation. The options on the camera are well beyond anything I expected on a phone. I really like the camera on my iPhone but this gives me features I don’t have on it. Even out of the box, this camera would be perfect to take pictures on a vacation. With the many camera apps for Andriod that are out there, you can do some really cool things.

Quick Office - Liked the idea of having access to basic Word Processing capability on a phone. Being able to save documents in Word or Excel is definitely valuable. However, the Word document does not have any of the formatting options I expected - and so it is really no different from a basic text editor. Once I created a document, I could not find a way to delete it.

Usability – It look me a while to figure out how to exit my current screen – the only out being the back option at the bottom of the screen. The Home option was a life saver. I have to admit I did not read the manual – I expect the interface to be intuitive enough to make the user manual redundant. On the keyboard itself, the navigation between alpha, numbers and different character sets was somewhat confusing. The predictive option that came on every time I tried to type something was extremely aggravating. It took me all of five minutes to type my name because it is not a word in the dictionary. Typing on the keyboard was no walk in the park either – I was fat fingering letters at an astounding clip.

Summary – Like it a lot and will watch how it evolves. The next time I am in the market for a smartphone, the Android will be strong contender. The biggest thing on my wishlist is for Voice Actions to work a lot smarter than they do now.

Manufactured Serendipity

2011-07-05T22:45:00.000-04:00

Art and factory wouldn't normally belong together unless it were by design. Thought this was a beautiful idea - to commission art from factories by having each piece be incorrect in any way that a factory worker chose it to be. The results of the project are intriguing and whimsical - they could just as easily been created in an artist's studio by hand. Making these useless, unusable objects may have been the most creative latitude these factory workers ever had in their jobs. What an amazing break from monotony and a beautiful assay into the world of art, and design that would have been. As always, the reader reactions to the story make for interesting reading - not everyone is equally impressed and with good reason too.

Things Past

2011-07-04T16:09:00.004-04:00

My mother is visiting us for a few months this summer - the first time since DB and I got married. The old and new in all of our lives are colliding randomly with unintended consequences. J has regressed a couple of years or more being the "baby" grandma knew when she saw her last. DB is learning how to adjust to yet another new person in his life. I am trying to balance being the daughter I have always been without making DB feel like he's the odd one out in the family. My mother is seeing me being a wife once again - there are some sad memories there for her mingled with happiness for me. We visit the past for different reasons and outcomes.

My cousin M called me after ten years this morning - to say hello. She has trouble reconciling with the changes in my life and traipses around the subject of DB. Instead she talks of the last time we met - when R(my ex) was still around. She takes trouble not to mention him and the memory turns lifeless as a result. M treats marriage like a minefield and maneuvers her way around it for the hour that we talk. It leaves a strange taste in the mouth - I feel like a cardboard character with every sliver of life pared away from me.

In her anxiety to spare my feelings, M drained my life out of blood. After I got off the phone with her, I found myself thinking of the many uses of nostalgia - to rejoice, to recalibrate, to reminiscence, to wallow, to celebrate and much more.

Mirror Image

2011-07-02T17:38:00.007-04:00

DB and I were waiting our turn at the counter when I saw this woman and her child. Almost reading my thoughts, DB said "That must have been how J and you were before we met". Her stress level was perceptible, the child (about J's age) looked completely worn out. The two seemed to be surrounded in an orb of anxiety. She spoke breathlessly to the customer service agent - trying to explain why it would be impossible for her to come back another time to complete whatever business she had. I could relate. There was a full-time job, raising a child, possibly no support or vacation time. This was the only window of opportunity to complete the task.

After some back and forth, she gave up, grabbed her paperwork and the child's hand and rushed out. In her face, her body language and in how she interacted with the woman at the counter, I saw myself as I was for ten years. No one had held up a mirror to me and shown me how odd I appeared to the world at large. I repeated myself often, fearing that I would not be heard or understood. I assumed the victim position in most transactions and came out of them feeling like one.

Like me, this woman (she would be about my age) was a desi abroad who may have valued freedom to live without social isolation over having immediate family around and a familiar cultural milieu to raise her child. She had traveled eight hours to make this appointment with a young child in tow. If there was a partner, they were not present in her life in a way that eased her troubles, more likely than not - there was not a partner. I did not find myself feeling sorry for her - it was not often that I felt sorry for myself when I was in her shoes. I could tell she had the strength and the confidence it took to overcome. There would be battle-scars that would like years to fade but she would not succumb to her circumstances.

In time, she would gain tranquility, she would smile more, relax in her interactions with the world. In time, the tide would turn and she would have the companion that could be there for her when it counted. Seeing myself as I had been heightened my appreciation for what I have in my life.

Random Analogy

2011-06-10T10:56:00.002-04:00

DB comes up with some really quotable stuff now and again. An observation thrown in the middle of an unrelated conversation will give me pause of thought. Recently one evening while cleaning out his French Press that always has it's plastic base falling off, DB said "India is to the IT services industry what China is to the manufacturing in this country. They both produce stuff that is attractive because it is so cheap and really bad for you in the long term" Obviously the Made in China label at the base of the Press triggered this.

At his workplace, a cheap and relatively unknown Indian managed services provider is trying incredibly hard to win their business. There is no harm done in that except that they are flagrantly misrepresenting their capabilities in every aspect of the proposed engagement. He is yet to see one original idea or any indication that they understand what they are looking to undertake. Every presentation they have made to the management team is generic and culled from material "googled" on "the internets". None of it translates to or address the problem at hand. However, the price point is simply too compelling to not consider. The powers that be figure even if they get it wrong 70% of the time, the numbers will still favor them over running a similar operation locally.

To DB's point this is no different from him picking up that French Press at Wal-Mart because it was "value" for money. This was to replace an expensive one he had before that dropped on a hard surface and broke. Instead of staffing local at ten times the cost of the outsourced operation, DB's company will decide to take the Wal-Mart route with managed services. This shop in India will deliver the software services equivalent of this fragile French Press that smells of plastic, has an unstable base and generally exudes cheapness. Like DB, they may in a few years be back in the market for a superior product.

Hardening

2011-06-07T20:20:00.003-04:00

At the kernel of J is a very headstrong person. She was that even at a few months old. There would be no kicking and screaming to protest but she would resolutely hold her ground and do exactly what she had set out to do. In the last few months, DB and I have noticed a more concerning variation on the theme of "resolute". When we are upset with her for any reason, she switches off emotionally and presents a stone cold persona that nothing can touch. Our words and remonstrations mean nothing to her at that point - it is like we have lost all contact with the child and yet she is sitting right across from us at the dinner table. The snapping of connection is as sudden as it is complete and it leaves us at our wits end. Yesterday DB tried a different way to get to the bottom of this change. After the moment of disagreement had passed, he started a casual conversation with her and soon she had regained her usual animation. Once he had her full attention, he started probing a little into her how she had been feeling lately - about herself, about us as a family and so on.

We were able to piece together quite a bit on what she said. In the early days of our marriage, DB and I would often get into arguments - we are both highly independent and strong-willed people so it took a lot of doing to stop getting at each others' throats. In a snap, all the love, affection and respect would disappear and we'd be absolutely infuriated with each other. Until that time, J had never seen a man around the house, never seen me as a married woman and had no idea of what may or may not be normal between two parents. I had forgotten what it was to adjust to another adult or accept a way of life very different from my own. So here we were, DB and I shaking out a brand new marriage with a completely confused eight year old looking on.

She said, she had no idea what would happen next. She was scared a lot and worried about what the future held for her. She was no longer sure about Mommy because Mommy was acting out in ways she had never known her to in her entire life. The only way she knew to protect herself was to harden, to become tough so nothing could touch her. She had gone into self-preservation mode and this was the only defense mechanism she knew.

The marriage is a year old now, DB and I have defined the rules of engagement and we don't squabble over every little thing. The communication between us is not perfect but we recognize it right away when there is a problem and make the effort to correct it. The arguments when they happen are not nearly as intense and J carries on treating it like background noise. She has learned to cope, carved a safe haven for herself in past year's turmoil to the point that I feel like I have to re-discover the child I gave birth to.

I was once her source of strength and the person in charge of her life. In the past year fallen from grace. J has seen the weak, vulnerable and often emotionally volatile side of me. The rite of passage DB and I have been through in year one is completely normal in a new marriage except if this had been our first, J would not have been around quite yet to be impacted by it. I will do everything I can to right course with her from here on out but cannot turn the clock back. I hope watching the initial adjustment stage of a relationship and seeing it grow stronger as a result gives her something of value that she can use in her own life - at least that's how I try to rationalize what I cannot change no matter how much I want to

J Speak

2011-05-13T20:52:00.003-04:00

Dinner table exchanges between DB and J can be very entertaining. Had to write down a couple of recent ones before I forgot.

DB tells J "Hey J, you are growing bigger". J shoots him a withering look "Did you just insult me and call me fat ?". This coming from some who weighs less than sixty pounds is beyond funny but DB went on to clarify his intent - big as growing bigger and taller. "Well, there is big as in Larry the Cable Guy and tall as in Shaq O'Neal. Which one did you mean ?" J shot right back. This is what happens when you bring a tween and cable TV together - this is pop-culture immersion meeting tween attitude.

DB asks J "Do you think it's fair that your mom takes my entire paycheck away ?" and she replies "No, it's not. It's a free country but not a fair world". Whatever the provenance of that piece of J Speak, it certainly left us at a loss for words. I am bracing myself for what she will throw at us once she hits her teens. In the meanwhile, I am browsing the self-help aisle seeking professional advice for parents of tweens with tude.

Motherhood

2011-05-08T17:19:00.005-04:00

This mother's day for the first time in my life, I was given the full on star treatment that mothers get on Mother's Day. In years past, J would do her very best to make me something special - a piece of art, coupons I could trade for favors like two huggies and such other cuteness. She would worry that she was not doing nearly enough for me because other kids had dads or other adults around who could help them out. I could not assure her one big hug from her is was the best gift I could get and indeed that alone was enough.

After enjoying a big breakfast made by DB and J, I was out in the world today watching other mothers enjoying their stardom. Somewhere between breakfast, a visit to the fine arts museum and lunch, I responded to one blogger friend's request for six words to describe your mother. Mine were : Sunshine and lightning arrestor of pain. Later in the day another blogger recommended reading a poignant piece on motherhood. Reading these lines in the article was like listening to DB speak in the early days of our marriage :

Because if mothers don't teach their children how to be happy by example, who will? Maybe a mother's legacy -- along with unconditional love -- should include a lesson in self-preservation. Selfishness

He said the same thing in the context of my tendency to visit the sum total of my life's disappointments upon our then brand new marriage. I had of my own free will decided to give up a decade of my life for J's benefit. In doing so, I had abandoned the pursuit of my own dreams and happiness. Everything for "me" had to be on hold, until J was well situated. As it turns out that process was still not complete when DB and I married. It was only when he started asking me " What do you want to do to make you happy ?" that I realized I was so far gone that I could no longer define it. My life's purpose was so entwined with J that I could not extricate "myself" from it. Somewhere in that dense tangle of objectives was my personal happiness strand - too trivial to stand alone, choked out of life by everything else.

Instead of rejoicing in the support I now had from DB and making the most of it to pursue my unfulfilled goals, I became paralyzed realizing that "I" did not exist anymore. I would have to work really hard to find this person, remember what she once dreamed about and overcome the dead-weight of inertia to make some of them come to life. Indeed, I had done J and I great disservice in casting myself in the traditional mold of the martyr - like my mother and mothers before her - lightning arrestors of pain. Unlike her, I am a perhaps a little short on the sunshine. While I had never sought the martyr mantle for myself and have a healthy disdain for parents who assume one, I was failing in my fundamental responsibility as a mother - teaching J how to be happy and find happiness.

Speechless

2011-04-30T19:45:00.001-04:00

J has recently hit a growth spurt - every time we check she is taller. A little bit of sass probably comes along with the territory as I was to find out recently. On evening, it was way past her bed time and she was still lounging on the couch watching Food Network with DB. After asking her to go to bed about five times in a row and being ignored, I finally lost my cool. "J, I am going to count to three and I want you out of the couch and in your room" I shouted from the kitchen.

Cool as a cucumber, her eyes still peeled on the TV J says to me "Go right ahead, Mommy. I hope you learn to say your ABCs after that". DB and I could not help ourselves - we burst out laughing. Needless to say, I was not able to make either a witty or stern comeback to that. So, J took her time - about ten minutes longer and then retired for the day.

It occurred to me that she had managed the situation to her advantage - and she is not even ten years old. If she leaves me tongue tied now, how do I hope to deal with what she throws at me a few years out. For the first time, I am beginning to understand how being a first generation immigrant without the experience of having gone to undergrad or grad school in America makes it hard for me to take on J.

Having had little to no contact with desi society in the last ten years has made J a product of cultural experiences that I have not experienced growing up. She is twice alienated in that she has nothing in common with my background and does not share much with her desi peers whose parents have made a concerted effort to give them the Indian experience abroad.

Culling and Surrendering

2011-04-21T21:51:00.001-04:00

I always marvel at people who get ten times as much done as I do in day. Along with awe comes envy and disappointment with myself. So much on my wish-list and so little time. As the years go by, the days grow more and more crowded. After marriage, I realized that my personal time had all but evaporated. I now need to carve that time out of nowhere because all the hours of the day are spoken for. Yet I know of women who are able to raise a couple of kids, manage a home and a career and still make it to girls' night out every other Friday.

Reading this article where the author talks about the difference between culling and surrendering gave me pause. Culling is the choosing you do for yourself. It's the sorting of what's worth your time and what's not worth your time. I have culled in certain areas of my life but overall my tendency has been one of surrendering - Surrender, on the other hand, is the realization that you do not have time for everything that would be worth the time you invested in it if you had the time, and that this fact doesn't have to threaten your sense that you are well-read.

I have culled in my media consumption habits - skimming through a lot of books but rarely finding something worth reading in its entirety. My online reading habits are similar too. Television does not interest me so there is little time wasted there. I have refused to become slave to the smartphone and use what I need when I need it. It would not degrade the quality of my life tremendously if my phone lost a lot if not most of its smarts.

But there is a lot else to life besides media one consumes. In almost everything else, I have surrendered. The odds of reaching the finish line do not motivate me to try to accomplish a partial goal. That would explain my envy of those who refuse to surrender to the want of time in their lives and find a way to do a little of everything that makes them happy even it that means not reaching the finish line in a single thing. So it is okay to have still born art and craft projects, piles of unread books, long list of unvisited places and more. It is okay to surrender to the impossibility of reaching the end and still have a sense of accomplishment.

Spellbound

2011-04-08T20:49:00.001-04:00

I have written before of my disappointment with reading Jhumpa Lahiri's books specially because she has such amazing facility with language. From lesser talent, the reader expects a lot less and is not nearly as disappointed.

Finally, I read a piece by Lahiri that is completely satisfying. This is the kind of writing I have been waiting to read. Each word in this essay is like a smooth pebble, the sentences themselves so precisely balanced that one word less or more and nothing would be quite the same. If this essay was food, it would be an ethereal lemon souffle - delightfully light but far from frivolous.

What I specially loved about this piece is that she made no reference to her immigrant roots or invoke her signature diaspora angst. Leaving those tropes behind, did not take anything away from the deeply personal voice of her writing, instead it rendered the piece universally appealing. This is the Lahiri that I've been waiting to read a long time.

I can't wait for her to write a volume of essays - if they are nearly as good as this one, it would have the reader absolutely spellbound.

An Entrenched Offshore Engagement

2011-03-19T21:39:00.003-04:00

I am back consulting for client after a hiatus of three years. The last time around, they had just made a major push to outsource their software development work. The old hands in the company were still around, took pride in the products they had built and were accepting the new order grudgingly at best. The offshore team was expected to deliver high quality and when they failed, they were excoriated to put it mildly. If the B team did not cut the mustard, the vendor made sure they replaced them with A+ players.

Someone like myself was able to work with the customer and help deliver a durable solution that met their business needs. It was a long and frequently aggravating process to reach the finish line but we still made it - the technical lead was typically an employee who functioned as the architect and oversaw the delivery. I remember sitting through some very brutal code review sessions after which forty to sixty hours of work was trashed and redone.That was then and this is now.

The transformation that has taken place in the last three years is unbelievable. Many of the former tech leads have been let go. The few that remain have assumed more managerial positions. Some of them overseeing upwards of forty development resources. They are stretched too thin to provide any useful technical direction. When they are able they have to deal with resources who simply do not have the technical chops to execute on their direction. Used to be that the offshore resources were held to a high bar - made to redo work until its quality was up to par. Not so anymore. They operate in drone mode with no technical leadership from either the client or their own organization. To cut costs, business analysts have been dispensed with. Developers with two to three years of industry experience work directly with business customers to deliver a patch work of bad solutions that is always ready to fall apart. Defects have become hydra headed monsters. Fixing one, opens up ten others and the cycle never ends. Fire fighting is the new business as usual.

The vendor bills the client for the hours and the hours are astronomical. I recently wrapped up another consulting engagement where the client had their entire development crew in-house. Mostly full time employees and a few local senior consultants with niche skills. The IT shop cost this client ten times more than what it does my current client but when you compute the first time right stats along with earned value metrics with regards to schedule and cost, they come out far ahead even with their high priced resources. The estimated hours for any task were within ten percent of the actual hours. My current client routinely sees overages of two hundred percent. Schedules are mostly ornamental with projects habitually going over schedule by six to eight months.

That is the cost side of the story. The far more tragic one is that of quality of the product delivered and the business customer's willingness to settle for any piece of trash that is delivered to them in the name of a system or an application. User experience is a non-existent concept as are stability and performance. Some of the applications have interfaces that remind me of primitive client server applications from the early 90s yet the tool set being used is absolute state of the art. It never ceases to amaze me that they are able to go that far backward in aesthetics and functionality. Each time there is a crisis (which is several times a week), it is all hands on deck to band aid and stop the bleeding. When enough damage happens they decide to lop off the limb and hope that the rest of body can remain functional.

I was brought in to shore up a highly dysfunctional team and while the I have had success in covering some of the most gaping holes, dysfunctionality is far from gone. I am beginning to realize the problem is likely not a solvable one. The customer no longer knows that they deserve better, that the quality of what they being served is third rate (if that) or that analysis must always precede solution development. They have come to accept and indeed support the modus operandi of band aid as long as possible, hack limb and sew in a new one when it becomes available. Repeat cycle ad nauseum. It used to that the customer was discerning enough to know that they were not being served well. They realized there was value in pausing for analysis (even if it took a couple of days) to be completed before a defect was fixed. With all that gone, the vendor has no incentive to change the way they do business. Those of us in the metrics business, are expected to provide analysis on root cause of issues, identify process gaps but any recommendation on remediation is usually met with apathy and inaction. It is enough to have a system that would identify the guilty party and assign blame.Since it is the offshore vendor's show all the way, no matter how you slice the data, they are always at fault. With that, life goes on after statuses have been reported up, executive summaries presented and the de rigeur hand wringing and finger pointing done.

It has been quite an eye popping experience for me to see what an entrenched offshore engagement looks like and should serve as a cautionary tale for those who have recently embarked along this path.

Inspirational Woman

2011-03-12T10:01:00.004-05:00

When strong is used in the context of women, often it implies strength at the cost of lost femininity. To be tough and womanly at the same time is a hard balance to strike. So you have the boss who cracks the whip and simply does not tolerate incompetence or insubordination. Her expensive clothes and accessories drip power and control instead of chic. On a "lesser" woman they may have made a fashion statement but not on her. Superficially there is nothing less feminine about the strong woman - she is just as attractive, blessed with just as much fashion sense as anyone else but in her mind she is strength first and woman later. She does not want gender to bias her or those who interact with her.

I met Yvonne for the first time about five years ago. At the time, she was going through crisis in her marriage. Her husband had been cheating on her for a while and growing indiscreet about it. Her friends would find him with the other woman at restaurants and movies. The day she found her husband with his girlfriend in her own living room, she left home carrying with only things she had bought with her own money.

Yvonne had a high school education and a twenty year old son who was struggling to stay employed. Her day job while a steady one did not pay very well. To supplement her income she worked as a store manager at a local grocery store. For the year we worked together, her wardrobe was limited to two pairs of jeans, half a dozen tee shirts and a couple of coats for winter. Everything she earned was going to pay the divorce attorney and rent. Unless you knew her well, you would never know how much she was suffering. Her spirits were always high, she took pleasure in the smallest wins in a time was incredibly difficult for her. If there was anything she could do to help another person, she would even without being asked. Her son floundered from one part time job to the next and had no motivation to go to college. Yvonne, dealt with the conflict every parent endures in that situation - whether to prop him up and enable him or allow him to fail and fall hard no matter how much it hurt. She chose the later option.

I met Yvonne again recently. A lot has changed. Her son died in an a car accident in which she was very seriously injured. Needless to say the car was totaled. The incident happened after a particularly nasty spat with her soon to be ex husband. Reconstructing her face after the accident took over a year. The divorce is finally coming through though the terms are not to her satisfaction. She managed to squeeze in an undergraduate degree in the middle of all this and got two promotions at the job. She makes more money now than she ever has in her life. The events of the past three years have taken their toll on her face but she looks very fit - athletic even. I complimented her on being is such perfect shape at close to fifty. There is bounce in her step and her wardrobe has undergone the most amazing transformation. She has almost reversed her age to where physically she looks a lot younger now than she did a few years ago. "I want to look my best for the court date - you know when I get my divorce decree. Ted has been a helping me a lot".

Ted is Yvonne's boyfriend. They have been going steady for a couple of years now. Her face radiates joy whenever she talks about him. They workout together every day so she can be good and ready for the big event coming up. "When I see him there at the court, I want him to see that he could not take anything away from me. I have made peace with losing Kenny and don't blame him for it anymore" Her ex-husband is a very successful man who had married Yvonne for her youth and good looks. As they started to fade, he moved on to someone else who met his needs. What happened to Yvonne's marriage is commonplace but how she responded to her circumstances is what sets her apart - makes her an absolutely inspirational woman.

There is nothing that can make up for the loss of her son. The fact that she has been able to make peace with that is a testament to her inner strength. She rose like a Phoenix from the ashes in all her splendor. Yvonne is inspiration to any woman who feels like a victim, feels like her life could not grow any more difficult, that the world has wronged her and she deserves better. She took on a combination of adversities very few have the misfortune to face in their lives and transformed it into energy to thrust her ahead. In her heart she is still a woman, capable of falling in love and nurturing a romance. When she walks with her head held high, her body in the best shape its probably ever been, she still turns heads. She is everything a woman can be if she has the courage to take on her lot in life without flinching.

Cultivation

2011-02-27T15:54:00.001-05:00

After a big argument with DB, I always wonder what it is that lead up to it. More importantly, what we can both do different to make sure it does not happen again. Despite the best intent on either side, there is always another one. I am beginning to realize lately, that I found in DB potential to be an amazing dad to J and that quality about him drew me to him. As a single mother, my priorities in marriage had changed - I was willing to subordinate what I sought for myself to what my child needed. The marriage was no longer all about me - I knew we would all be miserable if J and the man I married did not get along well.

DB has surpassed every expectation I had of him as a father and for that I am very grateful. When we first met, I saw in him a kind heart, generosity of spirit, willingness to change anything about himself that would make the relationship better and the ability to accept his failings. The fact that J adored him from the very beginning was only more affirming. We got into this relationship based on attraction,affection and the ability to completely natural with each other. On most days, we do well given that the marriage has all its essential ingredients in place.

When we argue, it becomes evident that I had never allowed myself to think about what I wanted for myself in the marriage. This is something I am learning every day. Instead of being upset and disappointed, DB suggests that I "cultivate" him to be who I want him to be. That and patience according to him will give me what I want from him. He is kind of person who will work slowly towards his goals - one small step at a time without any visible signs of progress. I on the other hand want everything right now because time is running out.Unless I see big signs of progress and hit milestones quickly I get frustrated and call it a lost cause. I am beginning to appreciate what Shirley MacLaine once said "There is no such thing as a crash course in serenity"

Strong Women

2011-02-25T20:30:00.001-05:00

I met my friend M for lunch after three years. M to me, embodies the strength of a woman at its finest. She is exceptionally good at her job while spending an incredible amount of energy in raising her special needs child with a couple of challenging medical problems. She balances all that with being a wife and a daughter-in-law.

Amazingly, she does well at everything. She has a warmth of personality that sets everyone around her at ease. The smile is disarming and she laughs without holding back. Thanks to her efforts, her child is one of the rare success stories and on her way to leading a normal life. Just that is an incredible achievement. Meeting women like M is a very humbling experience. I have had my share of adversities and overcome but compared to what M does everyday, it is nothing.

There is value is being reminded of that - of the difference in order of magnitude of life's challenges, of the true value of what I do have and tend to take for granted. Women like M are also a tribute to our sex - they combine immense strength and tenderness in a way only a perfect woman can. They are not chic, fun and bubbly, oozing "femininity" from every pore but when it comes to being the yang energy that soothes, comforts and nurtures they define the height of femininity - the yin.Women like M, demonstrate what is possible from a feminine interpretation of things "typically" considered masculine - being the primary provider for the family, being able to decouple emotion from decision making both at home and work and being the steady hand the guides the family at all times. The understated Chanel bracelet and French manicure completely become her.

Fire Meets Ice

2011-02-20T19:52:00.002-05:00

DB's need to plans things to the nth degree drives me crazy. Similarly, my completely random ideas on what we can do at the spur of the moment stress him out. For instance, he will like to plan a three day vacation months in advance with every last detail accounted for - nothing left to chance. I on the other hand will find out on a Thursday, that I have a day off on Monday and will pick a random place in a two to three hundred mile radius and tell him "Let's go there".

In the past, DB has responded to these arbitrary requests with a complete meltdown and I with anger at him for raining on our parade. This weekend has been the first time that fire met ice in a way that magic was made. We were able to take a sudden vacation to a small beach town we had never heard of. We took long walks on the beach as long as the temperature allowed, J and I collected seashells that held potential as jewelry - DB offered help and critique in equal measure. For the first time, J tried shellfish and loved it. We drove around the quaint neighborhoods, checked out a beautiful aquarium and an island. We did not have the days planned - we slept in, started late, walked, ate local or cooked, walked some more and returned to the home we had rented.

When I first suggested taking off somewhere, DB got stressed as he is wont to do and I clammed up and told him to "Forget it". That is exactly how things have been thus far. This time, DB made an effort to work with me and when I saw him try to work out of his comfort zone, I came forward to help him plan like he needs to. He told he that he loved my spontaneity and was glad I asked to go at short notice and that he'd love to do this more often. Thanks to observing how DB does things, I have a much greater appreciation for the virtues of planning ahead - something that simply does not come to me naturally.

I realized this weekend that DB and I may have married because we are ice and fire. We argued passionately after we got together because we are so different and we were not able to negotiate our own space in the relationship without feeling displaced and dominated by the other person. It does not help that we are both fiercely independent and don't like giving up things that are important to us. Almost a year into the marriage we are beginning to learn how we can meet each other half way and nurture our marriage with the qualities that drew us together in the first place instead of allowing our differences to become the flints with which to strike disagreement and discord.

Lessons From Cupcakes

2011-02-14T18:40:00.001-05:00

DB bought me a super soft throw a few days before Valentines Day. He does not care for surprises and is bad at keeping them. I got my gift ahead of time and liked it better that way - the de rigeur lovefest of February 14th is not my thing at all. Now that I had been given a gift for to mark the occasion and the first one since our marriage, I felt compelled to reciprocate.

Knowing that he has a sweet tooth, I had in mind a couple of super fancy cupcakes from a cupcake boutique that is new to our neck of the woods. They are as decadent as they are gorgeous. Apparently everyone else in town was thinking just like I was. I decide to swing by after work, pick up what I liked and head home in time for it to be a surprise. Sadly for me, they had a note posted on their door apologizing for being out of cupcakes. Had I ordered ahead, I could have picked up as many were doing.

For someone who does not believe in Valentines Day or the celebrations that go along with it, I was extremely anxious to pick up something that was close to what I had intended. Rescue came in the form of ice cream cupcakes from another store down the road. Though not nearly as exclusive as the offerings of the cupcake boutique, they were good enough.

I felt strangely wistful driving home. DB takes the time and energy to think about what he could do different or better in our relationship. Him going out a few days ahead to pick out the perfect gift for me is one of many examples. I try to do as much as I can in as little time as possible - often without a lot of planning.

In the many years that he was single before we met, he cultivated qualities that enhance him as a person and a partner. For my part, I focused on running a tight ship - with parenting, career, finances and yes even the tentative forays into relationships. I have possibly regressed on the interpersonal and relationship aspects in the last decade.

Now that we are married, the difference in our personal growth over this period of time manifests itself in big and small ways all the time.

The failed attempt to secure bespoke cupcakes on Valentines Day is a small but telling example. Each time something like this happens, I think to myself "I did not used to be this way before" Before - a long time ago, before my first marriage or until my divorce. I would plan just as meticulously as DB does. I had an abundance of imagination and creativity - I used to do the things DB does for me for my R (my ex) - a man who most decidedly did not deserve that generosity.

I want nothing more than to restore those traits that have gone dormant in me to the point that I forget they ever existed. I want to be fair to DB - be able to give to him like he gives to me.

On Doodling

2011-02-03T18:52:00.002-05:00

I can't last more than a couple of minutes on a conference call before I reach out for a notebook to doodle. I feel guilty about this habit and always make sure my doodling is hidden away - I do not want to come across being a slouch. Some of my doodles are pretty enough to be considered artistic but again I am not supposed to be making "art" while at work.

It would be hard to explain that doodling actually helps me focus on the discussion instead of becoming completely disengaged - that I am being more productive mentally because of it. Doodlers are generally viewed as disinterested in (or bored with) the activity of the moment not to mention mentally lazy. It was most gratifying for me to read this article on doodling - vindication at last ! The author concludes her case for doodling that would be music to the ears of compulsive doodlers like myself :

Like infants and dynamite, the doodle is deceptively simple. A staggering number of scientific, mathematical, and business breakthroughs have come via the act of making inelegant marks on paper. The beauty of the doodle is that it requires no educational degrees, no financial status, no training. It only asks that we unleash it and let it do what it does best: help us think.

Speaking On Cue

2011-02-02T17:41:00.004-05:00

My friend S has more life experience than most people I know. The story of her life thus far and as it continues to unfold on a daily basis could give any prime time soap opera a run for its money. Talk about truth being stranger than fiction.
We were chatting one evening - we both needed a friend to share our thoughts with. S is

going through hell as she tries to help her severely depressed and unemployed brother get his life back on track. I was on that day having challenges with DB even if of a very different order of magnitude. I advised her to do the best she could do as a sibling without jeopardizing her own family life - to determine a timetable in which to affect (if possible) positive changes in his life. Beyond that there was not much else for her to do. She needed to define a tight boundary around her responsibility for her sibling and not allow guilt to keep expanding it constantly. She told me I had given her good advice.

Her insight about what was going on between DB and I gave me pause for thought. Her marriage is over ten years old and they had dated a few years prior. They make a wonderful couple, their energies balancing each other out in the most harmonious way. As I talked with her, I realized that I had forgotten how to support a man as a woman must. I was going about it without any finesse and DB was responding badly.

While my intent was great, execution was a whole different matter. I was like a dancer with two left feet trying to tango with a partner who expects me to match step with him. Not only was I an shabby dancer, I was constantly stepping on his feet making what should have been a fun experience a painful one. S on the other hand had tangoed a long time and was as sure-footed as she was graceful. The advice she gave me flowed effortlessly - she practiced what she was saying every day. There was that quiet confidence in her tone that only comes with true conviction.

Always the eager student, I decided to put one of her easier lessons to test right away. It bombed seriously. I was now that actor who begins their part on cue, does not immerse themselves in the character they are playing and most definitely do not have their lines committed to memory. Without S to prop me up, I sank without a trace when DB responded a little differently than expected - I did not have the improvisation skills to continue what I had started.

What comes so easy to S will take me years to master. In the meanwhile, I would be lucky to be able to put some of her wisdom to use in my marriage. S would not give me a failing grade on my first attempt - the fact that I tried, that I even cared enough to put myself in a situation that was inherently uncomfortable for me because I care about DB, would in her book be an A.

Data Analytics with Open Source Tools

2011-01-31T19:19:00.006-05:00

A long time data wrangler serving many masters as one must in this role, I have been looking for a book that talked about the real life challenges of the job. I would love some practical advice on how to do my job better without driving myself completely crazy.

I found at least some of that in Philipp K. Janert’s book Data Analytics with Open Source Tools. I am not the right audience for the math in the book and based on my experience translating something that technical to executive management would be extremely challenging if not impossible. Often there are no serious math nerds on the team that understand the concerns of the business well enough to bring their numerical and computations skills to bear on them effectively (i.e. three action items to improve customer engagement by 15% in the next 90 days).

More often than not, it is falls on the rest of us who straddle the technical and business worlds, to divine (or help divine) something of value from the many cesspools of enterprise data. To be successful, we to know how to make the most of what little we have in terms of clean data, repeatable processes, inertia to improving them and a common understanding of data across the enterprise.

In the preface and introduction of his book, Janert advocates using as little statistics as possible, going with the most commonsense way to analyze the data set and get a feel for it just by looking at it. Slice and dice it many ways, run some charts and numbers to see if there is an interesting story buried there somewhere. This is been my approach almost 90% of the time and I was excited to see it endorsed by the author. I have used what the math yielded as a way to prove or disprove my story. While far from perfect, the method has helped point clients in the right direction, remedy issues that would have otherwise gone undiscovered.

Later in the book, the author brings up a very important point. Getting data to be good enough is often feasible but to get it to be truly high quality maybe an impossible task. If the success of a project hinges completely on the data being better than good enough, it may be wiser not to take on the project at all. This is excellent advice that I will remember to pass on to clients who are bent on cleaning the Augean stables in their quest for business intelligence nirvana.

I would definitely refer this book again if my job ever required me to do the math on data instead of analyzing it using the far less rigorous techniques that most shops are content to use. However, I will continue to look for a cookbook for the analyst who has to work within constraints of time, poor data quality and lack of cohesive processes that are the sources of data. Ideally, this book will have case studies, problem scenarios and real-life solutions that folks like myself can relate to and apply on our own jobs.

Saving For J

2011-01-30T18:51:00.000-05:00

I was chatting with another mom about saving for kids to go to college. "Have you already started a college fund for J ?" she asked. I did not know how to answer that question honestly. I don't have a fund started for her and will likely never have one. Both DB and I agree that it is a bad idea to give children the idea that their parents will bankroll their education. I tell J that she can go to any college that she can get a full tuition ride to.

The final outcome depends on the amount of hard work she is willing to put in. We will support her in every way possible but she is already getting the message that we will not pay her way to a school of her choice.

So, I may never really put aside money for her college tuition. I would also never allow J to take out a big loan to attend some pricey school. DB is willing to let her work part-time to pay for school. I am not sure I can get behind that idea fully. I'd rather she spent that time and energy to secure a tuition waiver - and focus on getting an education while at school. The other mom sounded skeptical about my idea but admitted it was a bold one. Time will tell if I can walk the talk.

Heart's Traverse

2011-01-25T05:47:00.009-05:00

January is usually the month, I clean up my Inboxes. This year I have been tardy. This short verse was written in 2004. There are no notes to indicate who and what prompted this. So many years later, I cannot even hazard a guess. Clearly, this is not a road I will be coming down again. There was something bitter-sweet in that realization.

Of all places that you and I will never
be together, the traverse to your heart
will be the most rued. From the summit
of joy to the death valley of gloom there
was a path that led there. You never
told me , I never asked to know. If I ever
come visiting, it will be down that road.

This other one written in 2005 is much easier to decipher. No, this one I have not forgotten - at least not as yet. Yet reading it bring back no memories good or bad. It is like remembering the receptacle and not its contents.

Greetings to you my Medusan muse !
I see your youth reflected in another
who like you is not mine or even meant to be.
He of burnished copper skin, dreamy eyes.
A smile that winnows gloom out of my day
Were you like him once ?
I think you shear away the wild, unstoppable you
when you trade those luscious locks for a buzz.
You let your words drizzle out like acid pellets
gouging a good earth longing to give.
You said you would move heaven and earth to
be with the one for you. I was she – we both know it.
Yet sea foam did not reach for the planets.
The drooping shell of you merely walked away.

Continuity Errors

2011-01-24T06:18:00.004-05:00

I was driving DB's car most of last week. One evening, on the way back home, the radio station he has it set to, picked up a song I had not heard in a long time. I caught the last few bars, it sparked recollection but not recognition and then it faded out to headline news. I tried to remember when I had heard it last. It was so long ago, that it could have been another life.

But again, I have a few different lives - the life in India as a young girl enjoying the independence that comes with her first job, a new bride who came to America full of romantic ideas about marriage and high hopes for the future, an emotionally devastated new mother who left that marriage to find her way in the world alone, the determined single mother who raced against the clock non-stop for eight years and now a woman who is trying marriage, husband and home one more time.

Each phase of my life, I was a person that bore little resemblance to who I was before or after. Music and books have formed the tenuous ties between these lives, selves and phases. Listening to that unidentified yet very familiar piece of music was like watching a continuity error.

Lolita In The Suburbia

2011-01-23T06:25:00.005-05:00

I picked up the movie Towelhead from the library recently. Relationship angst and a thirteen year old Lebanese American girl caught my attention. J is going to be a teenager soon and I will the immigrant parent trying to make sense of the life changes she will deal with in a culture that I don't fully understand. I am always trying to learn ahead of time so I can support her better.To that extent, any and all insights into the world that a minority teenager dwells in America are useful to me.

Sadly, I was not able to bring myself to watch this movie past the first thirty or so minutes. The idea of a child (which to me thirteen year old Jasira, the film's protagonist is) could be so vulnerable got me anxious to the point that I could not bear to sit through the rest of this thing. Her mother's boyfriend "helps" her shave her pubic hair and her father's neighbor leaves porn magazines at her doorstep for her enjoyment. The men in her life are either outraged by her blooming sexuality or uncontrollably titillated by it. It is like they have no control over how they react to a thirteen year old's bodily changes. Add to that the racial slights and other forms of harassment the kid has to deal with at school. Depicting the girl in deliberately Lolita-esque light, is the most pathetic excuse to prop the storyline up.Lolita has been done before and there no additional value a brown suburban girl born to an immigrant father can add to that idea.

The artistic merits of the movie are questionable at best. One assumes that Allan Ball is attempting satire in painting this American Nightmare dystopia that is the world of a young first generation immigrant. The movie may have redeemed itself past the first thirty minutes but I had had it with the gratuitous images of masturbation, menstrual blood, father holding up a bloodied tampon before flushing it down the toilet to find out about it.

Myths Of Innovation

2011-01-22T13:15:00.001-05:00

Innovation has to be one of the most overused words in the modern cultural lexicon. It is sought ardently where it cannot be found,ascribed where not apropos and most definitely widely misunderstood. The free and loose way we have with this word and all that it stands for piqued my curiosity about Scott Berkun's book The Myths of Innovation.

Berkun does his readers a big favor early in the book, by disabusing them of the idea of the moment of epiphany which causes innovation to supposedly happen.There is no Eureka or falling apple instant that turns someone into an Archimedes or a Newton. Instead, Berkun argues there is a method and discipline to the business of innovation. It is not happenstance, but the result of many years of hard work and persistence with ideas that very few believe in, coming to fruition in unexpected ways.

One of the magic recipes for innovation, Berkun says :

Hard work in a specific direction - The majority of innovations come from dedicated people in a field working hard to solve a well-defined problem. It’s not sexy, and it won’t be in any major motion pictures anytime soon, but it’s the truth.

On the kind of mental discipline it takes to to innovate, he says :

The secret to balancing work and play is thinking of the mind as a filter. Instead of binary switches—open vs. closed, creative vs. routine—we need a sliding scale of openness we can control. If you want new ideas, you have to slide toward openness, turning some filters off, exploring thoughts you’d ordinarily reject offhand.

My favorite part of the book is where Berkun outlines a simple plan to turn the promise of innovation to reality. I would recommend The Myths of Innovation to anyone who is curious about the the history and current state of innovation. The many practical ideas on how to innovate in the real world, are a bonus.

Thwarted Education

2011-01-15T23:01:00.001-05:00

The events that lead up to my request for a meeting with J's teachers usually have me anxious even before the meeting. At the conference itself, I find it difficult to stick to my rehearsed talking points and before five minutes are up, I am rambling way off topic at furious pace trying to cover all that I have to say in the twenty minutes I have alloted. My frustration levels run so high, that I can't keep it coherent anymore. Each time, I feel like I failed and should have handled it a lot better than I did. This year for the first time, I had DB to accompany me and that was comforting. We had agreed, if I wandered off-course, he would nudge me so I'd come back on track.

I had wanted the time to understand why J's motivation was diminishing. Why it was that she refused to apply herself to do anything beyond "minimally required" to make a decent grade. It took a while for me to even get them to see that there was a problem, that I was interested in whether my child loved learning and found happiness in accomplishing results through hard work. I was not interested in her grades - good, bad or ugly they did not to me indicate how her education was progressing. The moment of truth came when in response to me saying "I don't want my child to become the kid who learns how to make the grades and loses the love and joy of learning. That is what I am afraid is happening to her", the teacher said "This is ultimately not about what you want, but what she wants"

That left me so non-plussed that I could not summon any kind of response. DB was caught off-guard as well. For a teacher with some twenty odd years of experience to say that the course of a nine year old's education and therefore her life is not up to the parent to decide was so stunning that I had nothing left to say. Would she be advocating for J's voting rights next ? Surely, if she can make such significant decisions about her life, she would be well qualified to elect a leader to represent her.

I send J to school so she benefits from the social interaction with her peers, learns to work in a structured environment and follow instructions. I don't have any academic expectations from the school at all. What I had not counted on was for this enviornment to diminish her innate strengths, make her less than who she is. So not only is the school failing in its primary goal to "educate" because the teachers equate education to grades, it is also harming her by being the enviornment in which her curiosity, creativity and yen for learning are actively thwarted. And this at what is touted to be one of the best schools in the district.

What was most surreal about the experience was the hubris of the two teachers we met. They were completely convinced that they were doing an outstanding job educating the kids in their charge, that their tools and methods were absolutely the best. If the kid was not thriving, it was up to the kid to figure out how they could do better. Their process was simply perfect and would not be tuned. I realized when people get to that point in their profession when they turn deaf to unfamiliar ideas, there is no hope for them or those whose life their methods impact. So it is with J's teachers and J. In the private sector, dinosaurs such as these teachers are often let go when organizations restructure and get an infusion of fresh blood from elsewhere in the industry or university campuses.

I have come to the sobering realization that along with educating J at home, I am also responsible for making sure that I undo the damage that the school is doing to her before it is too late.

That Right Feeling

2011-01-02T22:01:00.001-05:00

There was something about Vir's voice that told Sheila that he may be the one. She had not seen him at the time - they worked in different locations of the same company and had met for the first time on a conference call. She tried to remain focused on the agenda and not get distracted each time he spoke. She chided herself for being irrational and ridiculous but it proved hard - Vir seemed to have some subtle subtext just for her as he went over the list of risks to the project. She was glad when the hour was up and Vir was gone.

They would meet three days later, he would ask her out to lunch. They would end up spending two hours talking about everything under the sun except business. He would ask to meet her again the next day and the day after. Instead of flying out home on Friday, Vir would extend his stay for the weekend. They would spend those two days together. Sheila would feel that supreme sense of comfort she had never felt with any other man in her life. Vir would tell her that "I knew that there was something special about you when you first spoke in that call. I knew I had to finagle a business trip out this way to see if I was right"

A month later they were engaged. They both agreed this was bordering on insanity- their friends urged them to slow down and spend more time before making this serious a commitment.One Sunday, as she drove him to the airport, Vir asked Sheila "Do you want us to wait some more, continue dating ?" and she said "If my past is any indicator of how that will work, we will probably never get married. I have waited this long to feel that right feeling - there is nothing else to wait for". Vir stayed silent. As he kissed her goodbye he said "Sheila, I am more ready for marriage then I have ever been in my life - I don't want us to wait either. Think about when you want us to get married - I am ready when you are"

Vir and Sheila became man and wife a couple of months later, most of their friends were too shocked to be able to congratulate them from the heart - they felt the sense of disconnect and distance from those who had been closest to them in their single years. Vibha was overjoyed and she was in the minority. Most of them stood by to see what damage control they may need to step in to do once the honeymoon period was over and reality set in.

Reviving Ties

2011-01-02T09:28:00.001-05:00

The past year has been about change - often of the cataclysmic kind. DB's coming into my life ending a ten year drought in love was as welcome as it was challenging. It was the year when some friends who had supported me for close to ten years as I flew solo, decided that our friendship had run it's course. So I got used to not hearing familiar voices on the phone, not seeing their emails and in time learning to forget that they were once an important part of my life. When the new marriage hit a bump on the road, I had no one to turn and talk to. Instead DB and I sulked in our corners and came back together when we were done.

I was forced to cleave my life in two - yet again. Life before DB and life after. It was reminiscent of when R (my ex) and I parted ways years ago. Spending New Year's eve with my old friend E was very poignant. She met DB for the first time and J after four years. We felt just as welcome as a new family as I did when it was J and I. DB and E got along wonderfully. We talked, ate, drank and took long walks along the nature trail that runs behind her house and runs all the way to the ocean.

Until reconnecting with E, I had been coping with having to start over one too many times in my life. Mourning the loss of friends - DB's lost plenty on his end as well after our marriage. As a couple, we often floundered on our own without the benefit of nurturing friendships. I am meeting my friend V for lunch today. She texted me this morning wanting to meet for lunch - just her and I. We have in the past meet in a larger group, V, K and his family and the three of us. I gather V needs some time alone with me. This is not a revived tie but a tie that needs some strengthening. I feel good about the year ahead.

Heat And Ice

2010-12-29T22:58:00.002-05:00

One evening during the recent snowstorm, DB said to me "For snow to settle on the ground and turn to ice, the ground has to be cold. If it is sizzling hot, the snow will melt away". He has a way with metaphors. This one came about in the context of (and the challenges resulting from ) my innate nature which is impatient, intense and restless. The snow turning to ice parallels the constant nurturing of a new marriage until it becomes rock-solid and stable. The parched earth reference is all too evident.

Conversation turned to other things but DB's impromptu metaphor stayed with me. As I watched the snow settle down on the tree-lined streets and become ice, I found myself thinking about what cooling down would mean for me. It would mean learning to let go of things from the past, not feeling the need to be in control of my life, learning to accept that I have and continue to be wrong about many things, allow the snow to settle at its own pace without worrying too much about what might follow. Mainly it would be about learning acceptance and finding tranquility.

The Couple

2010-12-27T06:56:00.001-05:00

The life of H and S (a couple I knew a long time ago) is one I have followed over the years because there are so much to learn from it. They met when he was a TA in her undergrad class. She was six years younger than him. They made an exceptionally good looking pair and seemed to have everything that mattered in common. In short, a match made in heaven. Her parents were disappointed in her choice of husband because they thought she deserved a lot better than H.

The proverbial serpent in their marital paradise was socio-economic disparity between the two families. Her parents were tenured professors at a well-known university. They were also independently affluent. His father was a high-school drop out and worked with a traveling theater group. His mother had no formal education and worked odd jobs where she found them to support the family. They were both artistically gifted (a quality they had passed on to H) but had very little material success.

H for his part, had always excelled academically and was working his way up in the corporate world. However, his overwhelming sense of inferiority to S (and her family) along with the constant need to prove his worth to them, ended their marriage ten years and two kids later. H has since re-married a woman who is nothing like the beautiful and exceptionally talented S. Indeed, he made a concerted effort to find someone who did not remind him of S at all. They have another child together. His career has taken off in a way that even he may not have imagined possible even five or six years ago.

S continues to be a single mother to their two kids. H has detached himself from their lives to focus on his new family. The endless bickering over parenting style was draining them both out and not doing the kids any favors either. S had to slow down career-wise despite her considerable talents, to be able to mother them without a partner. Fifteen years later, H is exactly where he may have wanted to be to prove to S and her family that she could not have found herself a better, more qualified or successful husband. His accomplishments are spectacular by any standard. She was to him the epitome of the perfect wife, the soul-mate he had sought and found.

Theirs was the perfect union that came apart before it's potential could be fully realized. I often wonder if they don't regret having parted ways much too soon or maybe the end of the marriage gave H the drive to achieve what he has. Even though they are not together anymore, the need to prove himself to S and her family must be a driving force in H's life. I wonder if such a marriage can then be called "over" - if S is still not the what inspires H to achieve and excel each day. I wonder if they are still not a couple in the heart and soul.In such a vicarious union, does one party win at the expense of the other. H got his impetus to be wildly successful but S could not achieve anything close to her potential. I wonder about the fairness of it all - specially for S. If however, one removes material measures of success (and failure), would S have appear to have emerged a winner as well.

Patching Jeans

2010-12-26T16:46:00.000-05:00

I have a pair of very faded and comfortable blue jeans. The best I recall, I bought these at least five years ago and wore them to the exclusion of any other jeans I owned. This past weekend, I spent many hours patching and appliquéing my favorite article of clothing. By the time I was done, I was worn out and my jeans had acquired a fresh lease of life. The project was a labor of love and a form of meditation.

There are friendships I have in the waning months of the year resurrected from the dead or near-death and nurtured back to life. Like my freshly patched jeans, they feel revived from the effort I just put into them. Unlike the jeans, I do not have a way to hold up my work and admire it. When I get off the phone with E for instance and promise to catch up with her again soon, I don't know for a fact that the friendship is healthy enough to survive the long periods of neglect, misuse and disregard.

I wore my jeans this morning and both J and DB said they looked really nice. Clearly, the infusion of life into it showed. My only regret was that I as I waited as long as I did to get started. Watching me toil over my shabby old jeans last night, DB said "I wish you were doing all this work on a nicer pair of jeans". I wish the same for many things in my life, where the repair and resuscitation came a little too late. Each time I wear these jeans, I will remember to attend to what I must, when I must instead of waiting till life hangs by a thread.

The Great Adjustment Story

2010-12-23T08:47:00.000-05:00

My grandmother lived to be ninety five and the family was relieved when she finally passed on. That is a sad fate for anyone. Her death gave me reason to pause and reconsider my own relationship with her which truth be told, was non-existent. With her gone, I was able to discern her good qualities better and make an effort to understand her not so good ones. It made me want to understand how did she become the person we all knew and so heartily disliked.

She was my grandfather's second wife. His first love and wife died at childbirth leaving him a heart-broken widower with a five year old daughter and a new born son. That son died a year later leaving him even more desolate. To shore up his dying spirits and get him some help raising his daughter, the family decided to get him re-married. The first wife was wraith-like, beautiful, well-educated and had a lot of artistic talent. She came from an aristocratic family and had been raised with care. She had been a true companion to my grandfather who was something of a Renaissance Man himself.

This time around, the family decided that the most important quality for the would be bride was robust health. The man did not need another wife to die on him.So they found my grandmother, a woman as strong as an ox with an unlimited capacity for hard-work, second grade education with nothing beyond youth to redeem her utter plainness.It became evident to her right after the marriage that her husband's heart belonged to his beloved first wife and all she could expect from the relationship was to be provided four meals a day, a roof over her head giving birth to a child each year. They had ten children together, lost a few along to way and lived in genteel poverty. She cooked, clean, scrubbed and did her conjugal duties but never received anything a wife might expect from her husband. This was the life she adjusted to.

Coming from a poor family where there were five other sisters that needed to be married off, she had no choice or recourse. Adjustment was her mantra. She adjusted to being unloved, being treated like she did not deserve any better than she got, having motherhood thrust upon her time after time, losing her youth before its time, living in hopelessness about the future, worrying about the prospects of her daughters in the marriage market and much more.

She adjusted to being a powerless, non-entity in her own household. The children gravitated towards her husband because he was a great father who helped them with their education, encouraged their non-academic interests and engaged them in meaningful conversation. Yet he never taught them to love and respect their mother. She adjusted to the narrative that her husband was a great man who had to commended for his patience and fortitude tolerating one such as herself.

She was sixteen when they got married and yet it was never an expectation from the Renaissance Man to shape and form her into the companion of his dreams. She adjusted to being told she was ugly and stupid and was exceptionally lucky to have found such a great man as her husband. She adjusted to being told that she had no part in the success of her children because she brought nothing of value to the table - except the good health they all enjoy. If ever a woman was treated like cattle, my grandmother was and she adjusted to it.

Until her death, she paid attention to herself. She wore crisp white cotton saris, combed her gray hair until it shone like silver. She wore some simple gold jewelry made from money she had saved over many years. She taught herself to read and tried to read everything that came her way. She adjusted to being viewed as a shrew by her daughters-in-law and grandchildren until she died. She adjusted to being avoided to the point, where she lived alone in her room, emotionally cut off from the family. No one had the patience to put up with her drama.

We all missed our grandfather - a refined man of many talents and the sweetest temperament. A man who was like a giant umbrella over the family - ready to counsel and shepherd anyone who was in trouble. Everyone bent over backwards to attend to his needs but my grandmother was always tossed aside like a rag doll past it's prime. She adjusted to being last and the least all her life. Indeed, there was very little that the woman could not adjust to. Of all the stories of adjustment in marriage that I know of, hers is the greatest.

Real India

2010-12-22T17:23:00.002-05:00

My cousin D has recently moved back to Bangalore after ten years here in the US. He came as a grad student and like many stayed on to live, work and make a home in this country. When we caught up recently, I found myself comparing his experience of Bangalore to mine (which is eight years old now). There is a certain timelessness about India which makes it easier on those who have been away for a while to adjust to the sweeping changes of the past decade. The recalcitrant domestic help, the teeth-pulling agony of trying to get some of the simplest chores done, the ubiquitous squalor and dust. D and his wife deal with those things just the way I had and the way our parents and grandparents had before us.

Yet, if one has the money and the willingness to spend it freely, D tells me that is possible to create a protective cocoon that leaves everything unpalatable out. The question of "Real India" becomes a very subjective one at that point. Those inside their cocoon see a world entirely different from those who don't happen to have such protections.

The cocooned life would begin inside an upscale gated community, the conduit to the outside world a chauffeured air-conditioned car that took one to work at an office park with accouterments that beat the best the West has to offer. They may choose to eat on the "cheap" at the company cafeteria or be driven up to a nice restaurant for lunch.They would shop at supermarkets and never need to set foot in a bazaar or a sabzi-mandi. They would never need to jostle the crowds to buy cheap street fashion being hawked on the pavements of the city. Instead they would go to an upscale store and pay the steep tag for comfort, convenience and brand.Work-life balance is not yet a social construct but that may change in time too.

D's generation for the most part began their careers in India and with the growth opportunities that came their way, ended up staying there and flourishing. They have traveled around the world and still prefer living in India to anywhere else. D and his family are a bit of an anomaly. For his friends, the cocooned life-style is the only one they know since they became independent. It is what they negotiated for themselves. The old fashioned ideas of their middle class parents mean nothing to them. Being frugal, cutting corners and squirreling away everything possible for the future are not things that this generation believes in. D is finding that hard to stomach as would I.Both he and I have not had the opportunity to grow into the changed India organically. We left early and carried with us the values from our parents that have really no place in modern India.

He realizes that he needs the cocoon to thrive and yet the cost of acquiring one seems too steep to him. When faced with a 2000 rupee tab a pub for a couple of pitchers of beer and appetizers, D finds himself converting that to dollars and asking himself if he would have spent that much in absolute terms or a fraction of his net US income. Often times, he finds that the cocooned lifestyle requires him to be much more generous with his paycheck and profligate with his savings than he has ever been. Until he is able to make that transition, his Indian experience remains completely unlike those in his social milieu.

Trying To Nest

2010-12-20T18:08:00.001-05:00

As a first time home-buyer in America, I can't but think "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times;" for home-buying. There is so much information and misinformation wherever I look that I wish at times, I could shut out all sources and just trust my own instincts. On the one hand, there is a buyer's market - the prices have not been this good in decades, on the other the best deals coming out of the market condition are not exactly what we have in mind for a home.

It does not help that DB and I are still working out what the "ideal" home for our family would be. We have been going through the motions the last few months - finding a place we like online, contacting the realtor for a showing, coming home confused about how far reality is from what we had imagined something to be based on pictures and videos of the house. Then there is the talking and being shown around, being handed colorful brochure ware on those who would entice us to buy balanced by the many cautionary tales of those who have.

Some days, the urge to nest in the suburbia does not feel nearly strong enough to fight the FUD that lies on the way to home buying.

Work Not Pleasure

2010-12-19T04:07:00.002-05:00

For the first time this year, J had to study for a test and the we discovered she had no idea how to study for one. This came as a revelation to me and my first instinct was to panic. DB was a little bemused by the whole situation and asked the obvious "How would you expect her to know what to do when you've never showed her how ?" By the time I was J's age, I was veteran test taker. In India a nine year old does not remember a time when they did not take tests. I must have been taught in my time too but was so young that I have no recollection of it - I thought that test taking is instinctive not much different from breathing. We are now working with J, teaching her some basic skills she will need to succeed as a student.

Reading this article about how the educational crisis in America is a moral and not a monetary one, struck a deep chord in the context of my recent challenges. J's complete unpreparedness for test taking in fourth grade is a telling example of schools making the "mildest demands" on students.

We have gone from a culture where real demands were made on students at home and in school to one where homes and schools make only the mildest demands on children. Instead adults have become eager providers of their children’s natural, but endless, appetite for pleasure.

The point is not that kids are rotten and teachers are lazy and parents are idiots. Rather, that we have created the wrong child-raising culture and the results are clearly confirming that.

For parents who are trying to correct course at home, the task is a daunting one. The social expectation of us is to be providers of entertainment and pleasure to the kids.When we do very little of that and try to fill the gaping voids in their education instead, our efforts are met with a lot of resistance. J may appreciate my efforts in later life, but right now Mommy is a mostly an insufferable nag, a demanding task master and just does not know how to have fun. Unfortunately for me, most of my peers are exceptionally good at being entertainers to their kids. Sadly for J, she will grow up feeling she did not have nearly as much fun as most other kids she knows.

Another Haunting

2010-12-09T21:38:00.001-05:00

MJ had returned from the dead for the sixth time since the beginning of their pseudo relationship. Many of Sheila's male friends had told her a long time ago this man was a bad news and the sooner she tossed him out of her life, the better off she'd be. He girlfriends warned her nothing good would ever come out of this outrageously stupid situation she was subjecting herself too - if she had an iota of common sense she should run like the wind. Yet, she found herself relenting to his 53rd email spread over a period of two years. The man was relentless - he just did not know how to give up, how to stop or move on. She wrote him back hoping this ghost from the past would finally be exorcised.

The communication followed the ever so familiar pattern - flirtation, the instant spark of connection between two really good friends, the rekindled hope of how special this could be. While MJ followed his time-tested mo, Sheila tried something radically different - she gave him an ultimatum. They had to get married by a certain date or they would never be in touch again. MJ treated this as an interesting variation of their old cat and mouse game. The off and on pattern of their relationship had lasted for years without anything changing on either side.

There was a sense of finality about their status quo and he was comfortable knowing Sheila was there, still single and "technically" available for a hypothetical relationship and marriage in the distant future. He wanted her to wait until he got ready to take the plunge, he asked for six more months, she offered six more days. On day six, she stopped responding to him - just as she had promised. He persisted for several months after and then fell silent.

That might have been the finale of the Sheila and MJ story except that it was not.

Comforters

2010-12-09T20:29:00.000-05:00

Both my grandmothers and mother made a few kanthas for me through my growing up years. Even as a child, I was extremely attached these utterly comfortable quilts made from old cotton saris, layered and sewed together by hand to make qulits. These were labors of love that sometimes took months to finish and nothing comes quite close to being a "comforter" for the heart and soul as a kantha does.

The last quilt my mother made for me was when I was getting ready for college. It was possibly the most elaborate one she ever made. Once it was done, I could not bear to use and ruin it. Instead, I used it sparingly as a bed spread. I knew she would never muster the stamina and patience to do anything like it again. It would my last kantha.

Reading about how quilting has gone Web 2.0 thanks to technology, reminded me of those kanthas from a long time ago. Unlike a lot of things that have traveled around with me, the kanthas remained home in India with my parents. I miss them every year when the weather starts to get mild but is not yet very cold - that is the perfect time to bundle up in a kantha.

Talking About Money

2010-12-06T12:40:00.001-05:00

For over eight years as a single parent, I straddled the fine line between talking too little or too much about finances with J. I was determined that she never felt "poor" in a material sense though I frequently over-compensated with emotional comfort just in case she did. To that end, J has never had (and to her credit, asked for) a lot of anything - clothes, books, toys and more. Instead I took time to do bead work on a plain white tee, embellished a jean jacket with embroidery and sewed on colorful patchwork on her jeans - there was a little bit of me in everything that was J's.

She has always had enough to be comfortable but not to become and extension of my ego dolled up in designer couture. I pride myself on being economical without being stingy but these measures are completely subjective. My friend or neighbor may have an entirely different view of me than I do of myself. DB for instance thinks I don't give the child nearly enough and that this a tender age - my "frugality" may end up hurting her confidence as she is not able to be as well-heeled as her peers when I have the wherewithal to give her a lot more than I do.

As a compromise, J has come into some spiffy new clothes - I notice that she is happy to have them but coming as late as they have in her childhood, she is not entirely beholden to them. I am staying true to my principle of building in her a sense of style that transcends the dictates of peer pressure and fleeting fashion trends. DB says that I am way too demanding of a child less than ten years old and am pushing her to becoming an outlier. I don't agree with the first part of his observation but when it comes to style, I would love nothing more than for J to find a niche that is exclusively her own and cannot be imitated. If that means becoming an outlier, so be it. As we shift and change to accommodate the other's views, J experiencing the shifting tides too.

This post was triggered by reading this article about what not to say to your kids about money. It was relieving in some sense to know that I have not said any of the supposedly wrong things to J. The issue of clothing and related self-esteem is something I continue to think about - at what point does it stop being about J and become about what her parents want to project about themselves ? What is the best way for J to blend in with her peer groups, without sacrificing her individuality or becoming one of the herd ?

While I may not agree with DB's assessment, he does give me food for thought and I am very happy for that.

Meeting New Friends

2010-11-25T18:07:00.001-05:00

We are spending Thanksgiving weekend with some old friends of DB a few states away from home. These are families that formed around when DB was first married and have had many years to grow bonds between each other. The wives and the children have spend many holidays together. This is the first time they met me and J. We received a warm welcome, everyone did their best to make us feel at home.

J found a bunch of kids to roughhouse with and is happy as a clam. DB is enjoying the time with old friends - their interaction opens windows into his past that I was aware of but had not experienced until now. The ladies have to pause their conversations mid-stream to include me. The men not as much, they are able to find things to chat about that don't require them to have had previous acquaintance with me.

The first evening goes very well. The next morning. I am beginning to grow a little trying to fit comfortably without encroaching upon people I have known less than ten hours. I have nothing in common with the ladies, I'd love to help in the kitchen but they have things well under control. The kids have more supervision than they require - I am beginning to feel quite redundant. They all speak a language I do not understand so in the middle of a telling something funny, one person needs to step in and translate for my benefit. If anything I am in the way of everyone having a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend.

I retire to our room upstairs, listen to some music, check my email, read the November issue of Time magazine. All the time, I am wondering at point I would have crossed the line and gone to being impolite. I do have to return downstairs where everyone is and insinuate myself ever so gently so I don't upset the natural equilibrium of things. Marrying for the second time has many challenges - catching up with friends who have traveled an entirely different path than ourselves is but one of them.

Behind The Veneer

2010-11-21T21:22:00.001-05:00

I used to be the girl that scoffed at Mills & Boon romances, enjoyed the modern twist on fairy tales - in which Snow White pursues an aggressive feminist agenda among other things egregious. I used to also believe that a woman's sense of self is worth a lot more than anything a man can give her - and to that end it was worth fighting for to the bitter end.

In my first marriage, I found myself turning dangerously enamored of the myth of the "perfect" union. We had to read each others' minds and anticipate needs that were unspoken. That union was the fatal mix of unrelentingly perfect and dangerously flawed. My sense of self took a beating that required the better part of a decade to recover.

At the time of meeting DB, the facade had come together quite nicely. I looked (and even felt) together and confident - qualities that DB found very attractive. I had no reason to know that the facade was merely a veneer. Nothing and nobody had quite tested its resilience.

That was the petri dish of romance and then there is the cauldron of marriage. Inside it the facade is peeling, crumbling, falling apart so uncontrollably that I sometimes have to wonder how it came to be that I changed this much in less than a year. It is easy to blame what is new in the mix of things - marriage and DB. To say that he is confused would be understating it.

The wounds underneath are raw and tender - it takes very little provocation to make them hurt hellishly - together, poised and confident are not words one would associate with that frame of mind. I am coming to realize that I had spent my life in denial of my true inclinations - maybe I am sucker for the saccharine romance after all. I am looking for the man in my life to be the answer to everything. DB is placed in the position where he is required to do everything and more and still find that it is not quite enough.

Then there is the business of "sense of self" - that thing that was worth waging war over. That has not changed too much. I am over-sensitive to the point of being paranoid. There is nothing that DB can say to me without me wondering if this would be the beginning of a covert campaign to hijack who I am and replace that with who he would like me to be. I bristle at the very idea, kick scream and protest with so much passion that he cannot correlate cause and effect.

If there is light at the end of this tunnel, it is hard to see it from where I am now.

Data Trove

2010-11-17T21:42:00.000-05:00

Having mucked around in data for the longest time in my career, I am sucker for trends - the quirkier is the better. It's fun to tease out odd correlations between data sets even it has no practical value. For exactly that reason Christian Rudder's OkTrends makes for fascinating reading. Anyone who has sought a match online, is quite quickly able to identify some basic "types". Over time, they are able to tag a profile to a type with reasonable accuracy. Rudder with his access to the mother lode of online dating data is able a whole lot more than tag and classify people based on their profiles."We've compiled our observations and statistics from hundreds of millions of OkCupid user interactions, all to explore the data side of the online dating world." The The "data side of the dating world - is fascinating to say the least.

PTA Blues

2010-10-22T17:42:00.002-04:00

This is J’s fifth year in elementary school and for the first time this year I became a PTA member. As a single parent, I lacked the capacity to take on any volunteer responsibilities that took time away from my never ending list of to-dos. I figured with DB in the picture, I might have more latitude and dove in to the deep end of the pool when I announced my desire to take on some work to help as a PTA volunteer. I have to admit, I received a warm welcome as the PTA is always scrounging for volunteers. Back home, J and DB were excited for me.

My first assignment was to do the monthly newsletter. Seemed like a walk in the park – I would get inserts from about six sources, I could pick out a template and combine the material. Since there was no editing involved, I was toying with the idea of an Macro to pull the pieces and assemble the newsletter. The work would be a matter of few clicks I had a whole month to do this.

At the risk of getting ahead of myself I was wondering if I could get one of the geeks at work to set me up with something like Silverstripe so that the contributors of the inserts could post their content online have the newsletter be generated automatically that the print shop could then print off of.

A day after I had been assigned my duties, another lady whom I will refer to as F volunteered for the same job and to spare us both any hurt feelings, the volunteer coordinator asked that we work on this gig as a team. In the first email, F wrote the following :

I also volunteered for the newsletter :). How would you like to work it out? We can alternate months...When I was in the Army I did the FRG newsletter and loved it. Please give me a call if you have time and we can talk more :)

When I read that note, my sense was that F really wanted this job to herself and wanted me out of her business. Against my better judgment, I decided to call her and work out how we could work on this thing together. In what would later prove to be a career limiting move, I told her that I was impressed by her prior experience with newsletters and would love to learn from her on the job. F had at that point already picked out a template in some obscure publishing software that believed would be perfect for the job at hand. Sadly it could not be converted into something conventional like Word – but she’d be glad to give it a shot.

Within days she had produced a top-notch newsletter, taken it to the printer’s shop and had copies made for the entire school. The speed and the level of efficiency was astounding to say the least. There was no way I was going to pull off something even close the next month. I could now see the error of my hide-bound ways – foolishly trying to empower the users with open source content management software when they had this formidable human newsletter generator going at a hundred miles a minute and delighting in the experience.

Almost masochistically at this point, I tried to convert F’s template and find something like it in Word and when all failed , in a final act of desperation reached out to her for help. She had in the meanwhile left me a voice mail message advising me to begin work on the next month’s newsletter as time was running out. I realized at this point she had taken the leadership role very seriously. A few days later, I had to throw in the towel and wrote this to the volunteer coordinator

F has a great format for the Newsletter that requires software that I do not have - we have not been able to convert her template to Word. I think it will work out best if F does the newsletters going forward.
I would love to volunteer for anything else that I have the skills to help out with.

I had forgotten what it feels like to be kicked out of the proverbial sand-box and my first foray into the world of PTA brought back memories of grade school. I am beginning to realize it is a certain type of person that makes a great volunteer like F and I just do not fit the profile. I lack the intensity, don’t derive a huge amount of satisfaction by doing this job and finally don’t believe in the agenda of this PTA.

I am an outsider who tried to step into the magic circle and had my hand resoundingly slapped. As for the volunteer coordinator, she continues to preserve an icy silence that I can only take to mean that I have been banished from the playground and not just the sandbox. Thanks to me, F must have moved a few notches up the PTA totem pole and for that I am very happy – she definitely deserves it.

Movie Analogy

2010-10-18T20:11:00.001-04:00

I served a spicy chicken curry with rice for dinner today and J commented " Eating this is like watching Bridge on the River Kwai - painful to watch but the kind of movie you remember. The blah kind of curry is like watching Cinderella" Over the years, I have heard a lot of interesting things said about the food I cook being that I can go from superlative to insipid effortlessly depending on my frame of mind. This movie analogy is however new in my experience. Since she finished eating her food fairly quickly, I am going to assume that the analogy was a favorable one. At any rate it left me chuckling to myself.

Since DB came to our lives, we have a TV in the household and the only thing that J finds interesting on it is the Food Channel which she watches every once in a while. So when I baked a streusel cake recently and asked her how she liked it, J was on the roll. "I'd give it an eight and half out of ten. There were far too many flavors colliding with each other and that topping was quite confusing - I did not get that at all". That would be a direct lift from one of the judges of any number of cooking contests. I am so glad that there was not a TV for the first nine years of her life and now when it is here, she does not much care for it. I could only imagine her parroting lines she had heard from less savory sources - I can't imagine I would have been amused at all.

Autonomous Cars

2010-10-14T19:57:00.000-04:00

The idea of driving as a hobby rather than a necessity is very appealing to me. I miss that one year I was car-less and used the Metro to go everywhere. As long as those commutes were, I enjoyed the luxury of being able to read and not worry about negotiating traffic. Can't wait for this technology to go mainstream. This is the best of both worlds - freedom from driving while being able to maintain autonomy over the route. There are many other appealing benefits as well - freedom from car insurance, not having to worry about your teenager driving recklessly and not having to chauffeur old or disabled family members to name a few. Along with all those benefits might come the come invasive technology that becomes prime target for marketeers and scammers alike.

Collective Wisdom

2010-10-09T15:05:00.004-04:00

Marriage to DB brought home a few painful realizations for me. After all (I think) I went through after my previous marriage came undone leaving with no option but to leave with a three month old baby, I mistakenly believed that my job (this time around) was done when I found the right man. As much as DB is the right man for me, it turns out that the relationship still takes a lot of work to nurture and keep healthy. I realize that I was not "owed" a low maintenance and zero effort marriage because of anything I suffered in the past.

It took at least a few months to even come to this understanding though making peace with it is quite another matter. Then there was the question "What next ?". The most reasonable approach might seem to seek some counseling, try and resolve my resistance to the smallest change in my former way of life, my unreasonable phobia of confrontation and finally my tendency to take an all or nothing stance on things were a more modulated, middle of the road position may be more productive.

Even before we got married, DB had suggested we get some counseling together being that we come into this relationship with considerable baggage from the past. I scoffed at the idea. In my mind, if two otherwise competent adults need external intervention to help resolve their relationship issues, they have abdicated control over their collective destiny. Why would it be impossible to analyze and discuss the issues at hand and come up with a remedy if both parties were invested in finding a solution ? DB let it slide and only now am I beginning to realize the merits of what he had suggested.

I no longer find it necessary to retain custody of the relationship by refusing to discuss a problem with an outsider. While I have yet to come around to the idea of a professional counselor, I do talk with friends about some of our challenges. They share with me what they have learned from mistakes and successes in their own relationships. My friend M said to me something to me yesterday that should have been completely self-evident to me but was not.

DB always buys me thoughtful little gifts - something that would make my life a little less stressful. It could a blue-tooth device for my phone so I did not have to fuss with a ringing phone on the commute, a nice kettle because I drink a lot of tea and am often clumsy with the saucepan in which I boil the water for it.

Or it could be buying me an assortment of dark chocolate because that's my favorite thing or remembering to replenish my supply of Darjeeling tea. Recently we were at a concert by a musician I had a huge teenage crush on. After the performance, DB braved the crowds to buy me a DVD that I could get an autograph on. This while keeping an eye on J and trying to get a picture of my and my hero.

He notices what stresses me out and what makes me happy and tries his best to diminish the former while increasing the later. Though I make every effort to ease his life, I have yet to buy him a gift. Some days ago in the middle of an argument, he mentioned this as one of the things that caused him disappointment. I would have never imagined I could be accused of being too prosaic and here I was being told exactly that and not entirely without cause.

When I recounted this to M she said "Always pay attention to what your partner does for you that makes you happy and try to do the same thing for them. If he is so attentive to your needs, you can be sure he will be delighted to see you are to his too - it must be important to him and that's why he does it as often as he does"

Nothing could be more common-sensical and yet it had not occurred to me. Like M, there are other friends who have told me things that I have pondered over. The ideas they have collectively suggested has made me reconsider my way of doing things and actually making positive changes. I still believe there is more power in the collective wisdom of people in myriad of life situations and relationship types than a professional with years of scientific training and a learned ability for being completely objective about the problem they are called upon to solve.

Two Million Minutes

2010-09-12T11:51:00.006-04:00

As a parent who was educated in India and is now raising a child in America, the subject of Robert Compton's 2 Million Minutes is something I can relate to effortlessly. It is well documented how American kids are falling behind when compared to their peers elsewhere in the world. Compton brings those statistics to life, takes viewers into the lives of six above-average high school students from America, China and India.

The film depicts how kids from India and China spend the entirety of their high school years (two million minutes) preparing for the entrance exams to get into one of the premier institutes of learning. They have no life outside that and a decision about career is locked in at seventeen. What is more, that decision is most often made for them by their parents.

In both India and China students grow up in society that emphasizes academic success almost to the exclusion of anything else in a young person's life. Xiaoyuan, the Chinese girl in the movie, studies music but making a career out of it would be considered inconceivable. The boy from India, Rohit kicks a ball around when he is able to - in lieu of being coached professionally for football as his peer in America might be.

The American kids are a lot more self-assured - they have a full life outside the classroom and books. The social emphasis on academic success is almost absent. To that end, a community's spending on sports frequently exceeds that on education; parents don't expect kids to give everything they have into scholastic achievement. On the positive side, they are not required to know who they will be for the rest of their lives at seventeen. Trying several different things before they find their true calling is completely acceptable.

While Compton's exploration of what ails the American education system maybe a little one dimensional, he is certainly not off base. It is generally true that American kids (when compared to their peers around the world) don't work hard enough, they are not challenged enough and they are not nearly as ambitious. The expert commentators in the movie tackle the reasons why.The lack of cultural expectation in America for kids to excel academically is possibly the biggest contributor and that is not emphasized enough. The kids in India and China are a product of their enviornment, take them out of it and they would be no different from their American counterparts.

I am a product of the Indian education system and have an appreciation of where it has helped and how it has hurt me. I am now learning about the American system even if by proxy through my daughter. Two Million Minutes is aimed at shaking Americans out of their complacence about their assured preeminence in a globalized world.

It is definitely a very timely wake-up call but to take away an all gloom and doom message for American kids is probably unwise. The ideal system of education would be somewhere between the Indian/Chinese and the American ones. It would emphasize academic rigor along with social skills, creativity, team work while nurturing emotional intelligence and an entrepreneurial spirit. With that combination, any kid would be set up for success in the world of the future.

Cooking For Geeks

2010-09-04T11:20:00.003-04:00

If you are the kind of cook that thrives on improvisation and experimentation in the kitchen and cannot be bothered to follow recipes then Cooking For Geeks is be the kind of "cookbook" you will enjoy. On the other hand if you are the uber-geek who wants to get everything exactly right - this is a great book for you too.

Often the simplest things like a perfectly soft-boiled egg are hard to pull off with consistently high quality time after time. Traditional recipes simply don't get into the science of egg yolk and egg white phase transitions as a function of temperature. Jeff Potter takes the mystery out of this any a lot else by taking a scientific approach to cooking. Geek or not, you would likely find that more helpful than the inexactitude of conventional recipes that leave something to the cook's imagination and capabilities.

The ground this book covers is impressive - from your basic scrambled eggs and pancakes to making your own Earl Grey infused whipped cream, Mozzarella Cheese and Beurre Noisette Ice Cream. Along the way you find nuggets such as the "Optimal Cake-Cutting Algorithm for N People" and electrocuting a hot-dog.

Early in the book, Potter emphasizes the importance of knowing what type of cook you are to help simplify the learning process. His main division are the "cook" and the "baker". The cook being the kind of person who prefers the "intuitive toss it into the pot approach" and "course correct along the way". The bakers are much for methodical and organized. To the "cooks" among us, Potter says "A recipe isn't a strict protocol, but do understand the suggested protocol before deviating".

Cooking For Geeks is a lot more than a cookbook. Along with the recipes and how-to, it is also cultural commentary on modern American society obsessed with perfection. Being a "good enough" cook is not enough any more in a time where Martha Stewart-esque perfection is the gold standard to aspire for. The author encourages the reader to fail because "Failure in the kitchen is a better instructor than success".

The book defies a conventional genre definition and is a very refreshing detour from the over-crowded cook-book space.

About Girls

2010-09-01T20:23:00.003-04:00

In his book Girls On The Edge, the author Leonard Sax talks about who a nascent spiritual awakening in teenage girls if not given a chance to grow could result in them seeking the ultimate happiness and satisfaction through sex or romantic relationships. This is only one of the many valuable insights in this book which is a must read for anyone who has a daughter.

Sax comes across as having a genuine empathy for girls - and concern for their overall well-being. After a long time, this is a book that kept me hooked all the way and I came away feeling like I learned things I did not know - things that may help me raise J better.

On empowerment and expression of sexuality he writes "As parents, we must reject the notion that girls have to take off their clothes to empower themselves. Boys don't have to take off their clothes to empower themselves. Girls shouldn't either." I wish Sax would write a book targeted at tweens and teens that conveyed the same message in a way that makes sense to them.

The book makes for scary reading - it would likely shake the most laid back parent out of their complacence.
There is a lot to learn and take away from this book for a parent of a young girl. For me the key learnings were :

1. The difference between the authoritative and authoritarian parent and the impacts on the child based on these parenting styles along with the risk of being a liberal parent.

2. The importance of initiating a young person into the world of adult-hood as opposed to leaving them to their own devices to find their way.

3. The threat of living in a "cyberbubble" where a girl is "hyper-connected with her peers" and "disconnected from herself".

4. Minimizing the intake and exposure to environmental toxins that cause girls to reach puberty ahead of time and bring a whole host of physical and emotional problems in the process.

Six Shorts

2010-09-01T18:00:00.002-04:00

Cleaning my Inbox after a long time yielded this.

Swooping through
the far coast into the
heartland, I wait
to turn home by the bay.
My traverse a wide
crescent
Like your smile.

I remember the night
I turned twenty nine
with my womb full

one half of me lay
cleaved on his side
of our bed. My eyes
turned rosebuds the
day after - tears
offered in prayer.
The night I most
needed your love.

III
The emptiness of
my workday coils
like a dreary boa
stuffed to the gills
yet loathe to rest.

On an early day in August
I made a note to myself
To remain steadfast
In friendship and not let
Eros grime the way. Yet as
Summer turns to Fall I wonder
If sometimes its not just the same.

After many years again
in the feeling of love
or its approximation, I
fight my demons again.
Needing more than being
needed. Trying too hard
to please - to fathom -
to get under the other's
skin. To grow on you like
a graft to be one in soul.
All demons of pain that
I have fought down before.
Where are my lessons in love ?

VI

A wall of tears is building
up like before - and you
do not know to coax the
flood. He did not either.
you sit behind in silence
tell me through data lines
and seventeen hundred miles
that you are well. What of
me ? What of the words of love
twisted like a taut co-ax ?
Do you care or want to know
what it takes to bring on
the deluge ? Or what that
means to me ? He did neither.
Quietness is inhaled and exhaled
interminable unbearable silence.
I am terse and vivacious
by turn not sure which will dull
the hollow numbing pain.

Belgrade

2010-08-26T12:02:00.001-04:00

Lights from the home on a hill
pierce the still lake water
in jeweled spears. Two stars
dot the immense sky. We hold
hands, talk about a sunny
day behind us. Two days later
the clouds lift and picks me
up. I have sunk to the depths
of despair, feared drowning and
breathed again. You are there
waiting - arms outstretched,
harboring me, my spiraling
hopelessness, my magnificent
inertia to change.
The sun warms
my spirits, your smile and
touch. I start to uncoil
hesitantly fearing I
may be visited by pain.
I am learning your alphabet
of love so unlike my own. In
the early days we spoke the
same language - the relationship
argot of our time. Marriage
morphs the meaning of familiar
words in ways that only
you and I will understand.
We want to understand and
be understood without
effort as a measure of
our love. Often we fail.
Lying on the dock
wrapped in your arms, silence
broken by the lapping of water
against smooth, shiny rocks -
we learn our first words.
We teach each other - meet
in puzzlement sometimes.
Really ? Is that what that
means ? Then there is the
compendium of gesture
and touch. You signal affection
I read indifference. I try
love and you hear disappointment
or frustration.
We drift apart buffeted
by head winds of misunderstanding.
At opposite shores we consider
the distance between us.
I crave your touch but
fear to reach out. At dusk,
you turn to me - offering peace
ask for time and patience.
The neighbors are enjoying a
showing of Mama Mia! We join
them - we expand our vocabulary
to become a couple among many
others. Our child makes us one
of other families. They smile
at us, stop to ask if they can
take pictures of us. We smile
back, ask where they are from,
buy coffee, wild blueberry
scones and chat with them about their
day. In parting, they leave
us with words to add to our
lexicon - words we may shape
to be our own. The night after
may be just as dark, daybreak
bleaker and yet in time clouds
do part, you hold me in your arms
call me your girl as we dance
slowly near the kitchen sink.
In time, the happy moments will
stand out like jewels spearing
the dark water - the water itself
or its darkness hold not much meaning.

Spectator Sport

2010-08-20T04:12:00.000-04:00

It was the summer vacation my last year at high school and I was in spending a few weeks at my Grandmother’s in Kolkata. On the evening which this post is about, my aunt and I were at Gariahat shopping. A young man who looked like a college student had been following us around for a while and then it happened. I was “eve-teased”. I told my aunt right away and she asked “Are you sure he did that ? He looks like a boy from a good family” and I replied “Yes. I am absolutely certain”.

She suggested that we give him another opportunity to be sure that I was right in my assessment of the "incident" and give us the chance to catch him in the act if I was. A few minutes later, we had reason to accost him, beat him with our bare hands with my aunt was livid enough to go at him with her umbrella berating him as she did for being a common lecher while pretending to be a student. He kept repeating “I’m sorry. I won't do it again”. As far as I could tell, he did not appear particularly contrite but was definitely taken aback by this unexpected attack by two women in a public place.

Soon enough, in true to form Kolkata fashion an audience had gathered around us in a circle. Several men suggested that we let him go because it was his first mistake – I was not sure how they could have known that to be the case.Yet other men said that he had been punished enough and we should stop now. But for the most part people (men and women) asked us “What happened ?” (clearly all that my aunt was saying in her rage to the man and his reaction to her accusations was not conveying the message clearly enough to our audience).

Some went as far as to wonder “Are you sure he really did something ?” or ask " How bad was it ?" (suggesting that us two women had recently exited a lunatic asylum and had got it into our deranged brains to beat up a random guy walking down the street minding his own business. If the lack of our mental faculties was so painfully evident, they should have called the authorities to strait-jacket both of us to prevent further destruction of life and property. Instead they stood around watching and asking these questions).

Not one man or woman said anything in our support - let alone demonstrate it in any useful way. Some stayed in the side lines and bemoaned the state of society where a young girl duly accompanied by an aunt was not safe from the undesired attentions of street side Romeos. They were the first to walk away from the scene anxious not to get involved in any of it. It was clear they held both my aunt and I in very dim view - just the kind of women that Bengali "bhadralok" should steer clear off. Imagine causing such a racket over a small thing like "eve-teasing".

After a while both my aunt and I stopped from sheer mental and physical exhaustion. Anger and the public mockery that my humiliation had turned us into was enough to want us both to vanish without a trace. The young man got up, collected his text books that had fallen out of his bag. He walked away and so did we. The audience left with as much haste as they would exit a movie theater when the closing credits start to roll. I would imagine it had been a "paisa vasool tamasha" (spectacle worth the money) for all of them - and it didn't cost them anything.

When we got home, my Grandma flew into a panic fueled rage when she heard what had happened. She gave my aunt a mouthful for setting a bad example and behaving “like that” in public. What’s a young girl going to learn ? Next time a man does something to her (clearly this would hardly be the last time - she seemed confident of that at least), she’s going to try and beat him up and only bad things can result from that. Is that my aunt wanted to see happen to me ? Did she not know that women from respectable families did not call unpleasant attention to themselves in public ? I hated to see my feisty aunt, my hero be treated so unfairly but it was just not the time to argue with Grandma.

We had to deal with her withering statements disapproving of our conduct for a good hour before she finally stopped. She agreed it was hard to not become furious under the circumstances but should we not worry about not stirring up even more trouble. What if the guy had decided to strike back – he was over six feet tall and well built – what would we do then ? What if he had followed us home an decided to extract a revenge even more horrible ? No matter what there would always be crowd around us inquiring into the details of the incident and do nothing. Had we considered any of that ? Had my aunt taken leave of her senses ?

She decreed that for the rest of my stay at Kolkata I was to be accompanied by an uncle (if not both) each time I needed to go out somewhere. I asked my Grandma if she wanted enlist their friends as well – I could go out boldly with a dozen men forming a phalanx around me. Should I still get “eve-teased”, I had a better chance of fighting back. She was not in the least amused.

I did not fail to notice that my uncles (both my aunt's brothers and her husband) did not compliment her on her courage. They look just as concerned as my Grandma. I was disappointed to see that. Is that they best they could do - say nothing at all ? It took my some years to understand their predicament. They could not realistically take on all the bad guys that we would meet in the world outside a la Superman. With their limited resources, the best they could do is to keep us out of harm's way

To that end, they accompanied us whenever possible, ran errands for us when it was not considered "safe" for us to do so. Refused to let their teen-aged daughters to go out wearing clothes that some pervert on the street may find provocative - the list was endless. These are the men in families just like mine who believe they are doing their best to keep the women out of harm's way. While they mean well, they also enable the crippling cycle of fear, diffidence and dependence among women and there is a steep price to pay for all of it. That was my life growing up in India - a life that I have in common with most Indian women I know.

That incident has some of the most remarkable parallels to my experience writing a post (including the comments and emails it provoked) some time back about the lack of freedom for women in India and my hesitation to return there from America specially with a young daughter.Some of the commenters reminded me of the audience that had gathered around my aunt and I at Gariahat many years ago.

They were those that convinced that I was over-reacting and nothing had really happened - India was not nearly as terrible for women as I made it out to be. Some were passers by with no desire to take sides one way or the other - it happens in India and around the world - maybe it is a little worse in India. No big deal. Yet others acted like men often do in India - go into full-throttle denial of the issue itself so they can continue to feel like "real" men. They focus on assembling a battery of evidence to show how India is no worse than any other country instead of being positive agents of change.

However, those closest to the subject - Indian women remained largely silent or vaguely dismissive. Their own experiences did not match mine though I was probably right and somewhat justified in my concerns and opinion on the subject. There was a welcome difference too - in the on-line world some were able to take a position on their own and stick with it - it was refreshing to see some solidarity from the sisters for a change. What I remember most vividly about that evening is the general attitude of the women in the audience – there was no sense of sister-hood with me (the victim) or my aunt (my defender). They mostly wanted to know the scoop – like it was some great mystery that only I could reveal unto them.

The subliminal message being that I had done something to cause this to happen and had it been them, the same man would have not reacted nearly the same way had it been them. Something was inherently wrong with me - what else do you expect with a firebrand aunt like that - and I was merely suffering the consequences of my less than satisfactory upbringing. They were so glad not to be at the receiving end of unwanted attention that they had forgotten that it could be their turn the very next moment.

None of them paused to think why it is that a man suspected of picking a pocket could even get killed at the hands of a mob without any questions being asked but when it came to a woman being molested, a trial by fire was needed to prove she was justified in making the claim of harassment. It did not bother them that men could minimize or even deny what they had to go through when they had no right or business doing so. It did not strike them as ironic that they were participating in this kangaroo court proceeding alongside men - that they were their gender's worst enemy.

I had felt that evening, that the eve-teaser was probably a better man than any other male in the audience. He took the public beating and the abuses my aunt hurled at him without protest and left without a whimper. As much public sympathy he had with the men in the audience, he could have well used it to his advantage and tried to turn the crowd against us. Other than my aunt, not one woman assembled there to watch the tamasha felt the indignation a woman should - to realize that was as heartbreaking as it was frightening. As far as I was concerned my aunt was the only woman who had a woman's heart and soul.

When I wrote that earlier post, I was disappointed to see very few female readers come up and voice their opinion on that post. If that knot of people around the three of us in Kolkata was a petri dish in which to observe Indian society in a test environment, so was the post. While a lot of time has passed between the two events, fundamentally very little has changed. In a sense I was alone with a circle of spectators once again.The tragedy of the Indian woman is not about the men out to exploit, abuse and manipulate her when they find her in a vulnerable position, but it is the lack of solidarity with other women. We are a people divided against ourselves in more ways than can be counted but the price of women being divided between themselves in the face of so much social atrocity is possibly the highest.

In this country, every American woman (black and white) in my acquaintance who has been a single mother herself or knows someone who has been one has gone out of her way to help me in any way they possibly can. I have yet to see an exception to this rule. These are the women that made my life in my single parent days relatively simple. My experience in India had been the exact opposite - my marital status turned me into a social pariah almost instantly. Yes, there were exceptions to this rule but not nearly enough in number to make it a comfortable social existense for one such as myself. For this reason alone, I had been able to work it out for J and I so far away from family - far more comfortably than I was had been able to in India.

My friend A, who has spent half his life in Europe and America and the other half in India, wrote this to me back in the days when I was dithering between staying back in India to raise J with the support of family in surroundings I was familiar with and taking the plunge into the unknown in this country :

"America is country of second chances, there is no stigma attached to failure (and I mean in a social sense). You will find it very liberating in your situation and it may be worth all the trouble. India is a great place to live - people are warm and friendly but only as long as you don't "fail". Once you do, the facade falls off and you see people for who they really are. From what I can tell from talking to you, you are in a state of shock at the difference. Don't be. Accept it as a chance to find out who your "real" friends are. When you come here, you may have no friends at all but you will get by with the help and kindness of strangers".

It was good advise and I am glad I took it.

A lot has been written about the position of women in India and the endless list of impediments on their way forward. Much can be accomplished merely through cultivating a sense of sisterhood - you would think the experiences they have in the public space would make this easy. Class, social and economic status mean absolutely nothing to the average "eve-teaser". Every one is just a female gender - for better or worse that should facilitate a stronger sense of kinship between women but surprisingly enough it does not.

That aunt is close to sixty now and on most days completely wiped out after babysitting her three grand-kids. My daughter will be a teenager soon and had I been back in Kolkata, I may have needed to do for her what my aunt once did for me - that is a sobering realization.

A Move

2010-08-18T14:45:00.002-04:00

After the marriage, a move happened. I used to think I lived simply, had very few belongings and could leave everything behind when it was time to move. In reality that is not quite how it worked out. The detritus of a decade clung to me a gooey mass of memories. The pack and move was the easier part - a couple of meltdowns notwithstanding.

It is only when I started to unpack my belongings in the new closet that I was hit by the dead-weight of the old. In an ideal world, I would throw away everything from the past in lieu of being able to undo the past itself. But doing that is like peeling an onion - the past is laid layer upon layer and if I discarded enough of it, there would be nothing left of me or my life. I experienced an enormous sense of emptiness. Shorn of the baggage, memories and experiences there was no substance to me. I would float away like an soap bubble and the dissolve into nothingness.

DB has yet to unpack his belongings but I doubt he will experience anything like what I did. He is simply cut of a different cloth. Unlike me, he lives in the moment and looks ahead. No matter what happened in his past, he never allows it to drag him down. On a bad day, DB will be down for a few hours and bounce right back. He is not the kind of person who will remember in painful detail when he last wore a particular article of clothing, the events of that day and allow those memories to intrude into the here and now. That is one of the things I love about him.

He would be able to relate a lot better to the feeling of oneness that I experienced with him when I blended the spices from our kitchens together. As I did that , there was a sense of things of disparate provenance coming together very harmoniously. Unlike the closet, where the past engulfs and envelopes me, the kitchen is where it blends effortlessly into the present. I wonder why that is.

Coming Into Sunlight

2010-08-09T04:09:00.038-04:00

Marriage after divorce and single parenthood for close to ten years is like coming out into glaring sunlight after living in permanent semi darkness.

Until recently, the need to conform to societal expectations had been minimal if at all - I could focus exclusively on a couple of things without having to worry about that taking away from other obligations that are intrinsic to a two parent household. Raising J in the way I wanted, getting better at what I do for a living and being able to take on more challenging assignments - was all I cared about. Then there was the blog that I fed a lot of my energy into, instead of seeking out or nurturing real life social relationships.

It was a very much cocoon - closed, sometimes rather suffocating but almost always safe. I did not have to compare against the standard benchmarks of relative to peer group success. They were "them" and not in my situation. What applied to "regular" people did not apply to me because I had challenges like they did not - at least that was my way of explaining my off the grid existence. More likely than not, I needed an excuse to not deal with the additional pressures of conformity and this seemed a perfectly reasonable one.

Now, that DB, J and I are a "regular" family unit, I feel like I have been propelled into the real world after a long hiatus. The "excuses" that served me so well for almost a decade ring a little hollow. A random Linked In or Facebook Invite can force me to take stock of my life, answer the question "Am I where I should have been by now ?" and worse begin to think about how to make up for the ten year lag in short order.

While I lived in recluse for a decade, what used to be my world has moved on. Seeing as it is now is almost Rip Van Winkle-esque to me and there are days when I get overly anxious about making up for lost time forgetting to realize that no time was lost that has to now be made up. I just happened to use the time differently and am none the worse for it.

This is like meeting at an intersection after a long journey that took two travelers through entirely different routes and experiences along the way. Who they were at the time of parting ways and who they are at the time of reunion is determined by the journey each undertook. Mine was different than "theirs" and I can't trace back the path they traveled just to know what I missed while on mine.

As easy as it is for me to process this logically in my mind, getting the heart to accept it sometimes a lot harder.

Anti Rules

2010-08-08T04:13:00.003-04:00

S was telling us when we were out to lunch one afternoon, how she and her boyfriend B started dating. Ordinarily, this would not be the most riveting topic of conversation - everyone has a story some less boring than others but S is outside a couple of standard deviations in personality so hers promised to be an interesting one and she had our collective attention.

Instead of playing coy, calm and collected waiting for the man to make the first move, following The Rules book and not call him unless he called after the first date - generally being hard to get instead of "needy" and "clingy", S took a completely non-traditional approach. She walked up to the guy and asked him if was interested in getting some lunch.

Apparently, the unexpectedness of it all nonplussed him and before he knew, they were sitting in a restaurant. The lunch went well and S kept a steady flow of emails going until the next time she asked B out for a date. She does not believe in waiting for things to unfold or for men to discover what they are seeking. Instead, in the right circumstances, she takes control of the situation and assumes the leadership role.Clearly, it works for her.

Now, we've all met B and think he is a very nice guy. With a less assertive woman, he may have been dithering to this day wondering how to make his next move (if at all) and may not have been the stable relationship that he has now been in for a while. He has S to thank for setting his house (literal and figurative) in order.

S the probably the anti-hero - the woman who does everything that dating and relationship coaches caution against and achieves what she wants. It could be argued that her strategy would only work on one such as B who she has on occasion emailed or called twenty times in a day until he responded only to say "Hello". According to her, it is what she felt like at the time - she was just being her natural self. No book of Rules will cramp her style.

Gamestorming

2010-08-01T17:08:00.001-04:00

I have grown into my current role of business architect following a path that has taken me to almost every role in an IT shop at least a couple of times. The perspectives I have gathered along the way have proved invaluable in doing my current job but every so often, the process of getting a team's to articulate in clear, actionable terms how they would get from their current state to the desired future state can prove to be very challenging. Every traditional method of eliciting requirements and mapping as-is or to-be process in my experience has it limitations and does not readily fit the needs of the team or project at hand.

Gamestorming- A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers and Changemakers introduces the reader to some off the beaten path ideas for brainstorming, process mapping, prioritization, customer persona definition, problem scenario identification, requirement elicitation and much more. The games are uniformly interesting, well defined and easy to play. More importantly it is a large and diverse tool-set that one can pick and choose from. In acknowledging that business processes don't always follow a linear path from current to future state and may indeed have a largely fluidly defined end-game, the authors make a very compelling case for practitioners in the field to try their idea of using games to accomplish where traditional methods often fall short.

One game I found particularly thought provoking is The Anti-Problem game. It proposes a way for teams to "get unstuck when they are at their wit's end. It is most useful when a team is already working on a problem, but they are running out of solutions". The objective is to find a problem that is the exact opposite to the problem that needs solving. The more extreme the opposite the more likely the team is to solve their actual problem.

I would highly recommend the book to anyone whose role involves understanding complex processes and systems, building consensus among team members, generating creative ideas to solve an existing problem, designing a new product or concept and root cause analysis.

No Short Cuts

2010-07-26T04:19:00.002-04:00

Dom Testa's post Short Cuts is just the kind of thing kids should read or if they are too young to understand have a parent help them. This article also resonates with Testa's goal for his organization :

He founded The Big Brain Club, a community project of The Big Brain Foundation, to help kids overcome the peer pressure they feel to dumb down. Young people often believe that they have to choose between being cool and using their brains. Dom’s message is simple: You can do both!

He cites the example of Michael Phelps and Conan O'Brien to make his case about years of blood, sweat and tears resulting in huge payouts in later life. They would both fit the cool bill and clearly have had to use their brains to get where they are in their lives.

Realizing the importance of "coolness" in a kid's social standing, I always try to impress upon J the importance of having a distinctive personal style - not only in what one wears but in how they conduct themselves. Cool does not get any cooler than that I tell her.

Negotiating Traffic

2010-07-20T22:31:00.001-04:00

I have never driven in India and don't plan on attempting to either. That said, I am in awe of drivers who can weave in and out of the maze that city traffic is and deliver passengers like myself to their destinations all in day's work. If they feel stressed - it is none too evident. An expat in Delhi (I have published an interview with Dave and Jenny before on this blog) writes about his experience negotiating traffic on behalf of his autorickshaw driver. The problem is all too familiar to us desis but the positive approach to solving it and the thought process is more than a little remarkable :

"I exited my auto and surveyed the situation. Possibilities materialized in my head. I mapped out moves like a game of chess—“If this car goes here, and that car goes there…”—and then I took action, standing in front of this car and pointing him that way, then standing in the hole he left until my auto driver could slip into it. Around me, other heads had appeared in the traffic, and the hole one of them created for their own car cascaded back to me. Using my gestures to move some cars and my body to block others, I worked us through the jam—me grinning, my driver grinning, other drivers staring, and still other drivers following behind my auto as he followed the path I blazed out of the jam."

The sense of joy and accomplishment is palpable. It is as if Abhimanyu had figured how to exit the Chakravyuha - sometimes even the impossible can happen. Now here is a man who has both the chops and attitude to make India his home. A lesser man would have fumed and steamed in the auto bemoaning the state of Delhi roads. Though one commenter tempers that enthusiasm with this observation :

Wow…this is very impressive Dave. Though understand, only a white boy can pull this off in Delhi. No disrespect meant. We both know that if an Indian tried that, he’d get run over within a minute.

Screener

2010-07-14T04:56:00.002-04:00

Recently, my friend D found herself stuck with the unpleasant job of phone screening candidates for a position her team was under some pressure fill. According to D, even in the best circumstances, interviewing job applicants is not her favorite thing to do - screening them is that much worse. Being part of the group conducting interviews and as such a point of view among several others is what is she more used to and comfortable with. In these tough times, being put in the position of the "screener" is clearly quite painful to her.

Yet, it is something she is almost required to do. To confound her moral dilemma, her good friend T has been unemployed for months now and is desperate for work. T's resume might qualify her for the position but D is concerned about T's ability to handle the work load. So she has not mentioned the job to T let alone the fact she is screening candidates for it. That makes her feel like a horrible friend. D and T have worked together in the past - and while they became good friends, D was not professionally impressed by T. D would love to give away her "screener" position to anyone but apparently there are not many takers.

Unintended Use

2010-07-11T20:52:00.000-04:00

It is always interesting when people put technology to unintended use - using Foursquare to escape into a fantasy vacation is definitely one of them. The author writes with obvious relish about his make believe travels which a cheat mode would completely ruin for him. What is harmless fun in one context for one person could be quite a different thing under other circumstances. As one commentor points out - allowing fake checkins on Foursquare makes it completely irrelevant.

While that may be true for now, if fake checkins became commonplace enough, a business model would likely evolve that took advantage of it. This is a perfect example of creating an artificial need, fulfilling it and generating in the process secondary and tertiary needs that are still less real. Every step of the convoluted way, someone could stand to make good money if they were smart enough to connect these conjured "needs" to a certain demographic that can be convinced that the quality of their life will vastly improve with this new thing.

Learning By Example

2010-07-09T19:38:00.001-04:00

For the last eight years that I have raised J alone, I craved an adult couterpoint to my parenting worldview. When in doubt, I had to second guess myself or ask another parent who knew close to nothing about J's temperament or our domestic dynamic. Advice I realized quickly cannot be provided in vaccuum. It is of limited value and cannot be applied as is to the situation at hand.

With the coming of DB into our household, I now have the much desired second opinion and I find myself feeling a myraid of less than positive emotions in reaction to anything he has to say on the subject of J. To my prejudiced ears, a lot of what DB says sounds straight out of parenting coaching manuals am prompt to reject it. Had he rasied any kids of his own, I would have felt different.

As with any offhand rejection there is more than a little bathwaterism involved in the process. On several occassions, DB draws from his own life experience - growing up without the kind of parental support and supervision he wanted, he has an unique vantage point. He knows what did not work for him as a child. I struggle to parse out of DB's commentary on my parenting style, anything that I can accept without prejudice, assign it the necessary importance and most importantly bring about the change in myself that would influence J's life positively. While I am not able to do that immediately, I find it easier to observe his interactions with J and compare the differences between how each of us operates. By observing J's reaction, I am sometimes able to find a flaw in my way.

Fireflies

2010-06-27T04:24:00.003-04:00

My knowledge of contemporary music is woefully limited. People my age and older typically tend to have fallen into their musical ruts for a while - they stick with familiar sounds and voices from the past. Then there are those who look to Pandora and the like to give them their sampling platter of familiar music from newer, unknown sources. The niches are too small these days in music just as they with books - too many acts in the fray for people to focus on anyone for too long.

Tween music seems to be slightly immune to this phenomenon. At eight and ten years old, kids have just dipped their feet in the online media consumption experience and still live most of their lives offline. They are able to stick with one band or singer for a year or longer, replay a favorite song to death - things that used to be possible for teens and even adults back in the day. It took J's fascination with a song Fireflies to introduce me to the sound of Owl City. I found the music distinctive enough to want to learn about the musician.

One of J's persistent complaints about about music she hears around her is that it is always about love. "Isn't there anything else to sing about other than love ?" J asks. So even if the tune resonates with her, the lyrics don't - so the song ends up having limited appeal. I could see how Fireflies would be perfect for a tween - a catchy tune for a song that is strictly not about love with a sound soft and cute enough to be appealing eight year olds.