Gauti - A Cheap Model for Celebrating Success

It’s quite natural to remember your closest family members every time you cross a milestone in your personal or professional life. Just the order of remembrance differs for many – some people spend a moment remembering the almighty and then their parents or siblings who must have been a great support in their advancement.

We saw that happening in cricket when Sachin Tendulkar scored his hundredth hundred; as a matter of fact, every time he score a hundred or passes a milestone, we see him looking up to have a word of thanks to God, or it might as well be a word with his mentor whose soul we pray to rest in peace.

Media replayed that image an umpteenth time in a way to salute Sachin for his achievement, rightly so.

Gautam Gambhir too is not any bad when it comes to remembering his beloved ones. Media had a tough time though to relay it on air fearing how the young cricketers looking up to this rolled-gold idols to build an identity would try and celebrate learning a lesson from Gauti! When Gautam Gambhir’s team defeated Pune Warriors in yesterday’s IPL match, Gautam was very prompt to remember his sister – particularly her private parts – (or was it someone else’s?) and it was so well pronounced that the camera didn’t miss it and parents would have gone blue if they were watching it with their daughters, for such was the tempo of the word he used!

I am afraid of writing what he said, for, the moderator of this esteemed forum (India's Trainers Forum) might not want such language to be used here. In same breath, I am also afraid that there will be a few - in this very forum - who might advocate his right to celebrate in whichever way he wishes as ideal!

What concerns me is not how he celebrates. What I am concerned is how our young talents are wasted. Do you remember the name of a young cricketer who is now running a music band? He would have been running in the ground bowling for India wearing blue jersey, had he tamed his attitude and listened a little bit to the rage of the ordinary people for the show he put on, in the field.  It took a cancer for Yuvraj Singh to begin to smile on or off the filed - until then, even celebrations was brutal as if to smile in the face of winning was a sign of weakness, that it always had to accompany rage and an abusive word!! Fingergate of Virat Kohli isn’t a distant story either.

Who is teaching them that celebrations cannot be gentle, and that it has to be with a loud proclamation of the celebrators sister’s private parts – which is the common language among the rogue cricketers in the gentle Indian uniforms!! For over twenty years they are watching Sachin grow, and why are they blind to the wonderful lessons he is leaving behind for them to learn? They have had Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev – legends to learn behaviours and skills alike!!

While I salute the skills of these big boys and respect their achievements at this young age, I fail to take pride in their maturity to succeed as leaders of our sports in the time to come.

And perhaps the guys in the commentary box should do all what they can to put down behaviours as such and help keep the game gentle.

From the bedroom I hear my five year old daughter screaming "Didi.....! Sachin.....!" to her sister as she saw a glimpse of him on the screen batting against Chennai Kings! I wish the Gautams too will grow for the next generation to look up at them!!

ps : I am reminded of a Sales & Marketing team member we had at InterContinental Hotels Group where I worked before, who had his education from the Rolls Royce of hotel schools - Lausanne International, Switzerland - but had to be terminated in six months into his job - not because he didn't bring in revenue, but because his attitude was rotten and damaging the other apples in the basket.

Shahir

06/05/2012

Aakashaparavakal (Sky Birds)

Aakashaparavakal  (Aakasha meaning ‘sky’ and Paravakal meaning ‘birds’) is a shelter for the destitute operated by a Christian missionary I had an opportunity to visit last week. Over three hundred young and old men and women are given shelter in this well maintained institution located in the backyards of Malabar in Kerala, perceivably uninfluenced by politicians and driven by the 'nameless' philanthropists from across the social segments.

In operation since fifteen years, this institution is remarkably well maintained across the facilities – be that the areas exposed to the outsiders or those that are exclusively in use by the inmates! As we entered the courtyard, we saw Sr. Kaanthi with the young girls playing and the younger ones watching them play – all of them having their own stories to tell, each of them would shatter our conscience for the kind of life we are leading and that we see as lead around us!

Over three hundred inmates! Sick, tired, psychic, hopeless, aimless, singing, crying, silent, loud!! They are provided with shelter, food and clothing. Much more than all that, they are given the care and love that they are so deprived of – either by the cruel twist of fate, or the more brutal design of fate by the most powerful in their lives!

Stories of life I heard from Sister Kaanthi who took us on a tour of the facilities was not only heartbreaking but perhaps would serve as a timely supplement to help many reevaluate their interests in life and realign their directions! Perhaps that’s the reason why many like me are visiting this place as an interlude to their busy lives! Among the stories were that of children who were discarded as less valuable than a tissue-paper who then grew in the hands of these nuns and were given life-skills to stand up on their own! We saw in the eyes of the old the pain of torture they felt in the hands of their beloved sons and daughters! The mothers looked at us in vague expectation of seeing someone whom they’ve been waiting for. The children – for them, that they were abandoned was a blessing, for, they are now in the hands of a caring few.

Sometimes we find solace in the misery of people living around us, and people who visit them return home with a silent prayer thanking providence for what they have in life. “We don’t want clothes”, said Sister Kaanthi, “we get them from many people who visit us. If you feel like helping, give us some bed-sheets, beans and grams, sugar, tea-powder… these are the things that will help us a lot in the daily operation of this institution.” The challenges they face in dealing with the emotions of these inmates are innumerable, and the only power that they have to endure these challenges are the power of prayers, and the reward is in seeing them have a life, or the least, in improving the quality of their lives, at the dead end!

In reflection, I live in a country whose elected president spent millions of dollars on overseas trips with her beloved family members – a rubber stamp position that was meant to guide the governance but looted it in its own manner, and the cost of flowers and garlands used for one independence day would be sufficient to feed hundreds of thousands of destitute as this!

Abu Sali took us there. It had a reason why a random conversation lead to this topic and to this institution; it had a reason why at this point in time we visited this place – Shabib, Rasha and I with Abu Sali -  after so many years of its inception and never once coming to our attention ever before. The scenic drive to this place arouse nostalgic memories of our school days – in our childhood, we travelled this way every day seeing with an un-definable pride the men in uniform marching in the ground of Malabar Special Police, its well groomed lawns and painted pavements!

As we returned, we were silent, each of us digesting the sounds of narratives we heard at ‘Aakashaparavakal', the sounds of sky birds...

Shahir

May 04, 2012

Life Lessons From IPL Cricket

Watching IPL is fun; the glory and glamour it brought with it for many eclipses the misery that it caused for a few (thinking of Lalit Modi and Sasi Taroor!!). The revolution it made in the history of cricket made it reach to the masses than ever before. It was packaged so appetizingly for the business houses to embrace, and when looked deeper there are more to experientially learn from what we see at IPL that will not only benefit the corporate houses but an ordinary man alike, as lessons of life!


Lesson 1 : Enjoy the moment: As spectators, life is a game unfolding before you as you watch it from the gallery of time; enjoy each moment of it, regardless of whether your ecstatic face is projected on the big screen for the whole world to see. Be yourself and listen to the feelings and emotions inside you and let them flow as genuine as they are – irrespective of how you are conditioned by your ego and the roles you play, as long as it is synchronized with the social norms; why do we sometimes wait till the camera is zoomed in on us to display our exuberance and smile from ear to ear, and keep a straight face rest of the time! Do it anyway, can’t we? When your performance in life is excelling the ordinary, outstanding from the rest of the pack or become worthy of recognition, the camera of the world will come looking for you and project you, and so will the attention of those who matters most. All you need to do is to perform your best!


Lesson 2: Lead from center-out: Old adage is to lead from front, and in time it is conveniently taken out of context and abused by leaders, by putting their nose in everything assuming it as their responsibilities in spite of having an army of experts who can deliver better. Dhoni or Vettori may be the captains of their teams but for obvious reasons they do not insist that they be the opening batsmen, thinking, who else can be better than the captain to open the game and be the first for the cameramen to zoom on!! Batting positions and bowling orders are determined as a strategy of the game and the strength of individuals; your role as a leader is to facilitate that engagement and provide a direction and purpose, reasons too; the team is bigger than the individual, and it is only wise enough to come as 6th batsman if that’s where you will fit for the best interest of the team.

Lesson 3: Possibilities In Life: The game offers you wide possibilities to play unconventional strokes that you had always been instructed not to play; your imagination is the only limitation to how well you can perform, which is why de Villiers could score a six with a reverse scoop, however unconventional it may have appeared. Before you are the spectators keen to watch you play your best; inventions and innovations you will bring about will rise to become an entertainment for the spectators, and they will celebrate colourfully with our cheer-leaders in our neighbourhood.

Lesson 4: Maintain Integrity: If you had stood your ground with integrity and character, you will always find a space to be around meaningfully, like Anil Kumble, with yet another opportunity to give back to the game of life and bring around a new generation of game players with character and purpose. Should the game and glory get into your head the only way left is to perhaps relax in a luxurious villa beside the backwaters of Cochin and compose music for a music band, or let go the palaces in Rajasthan and muse in the streets of England reminiscing the good old days spent in yachts and chartered flights tweeting life away!


Life is a beautiful game where everyone has a role to play, and the role changes. It’s great to be able to be at the center of the pitch and be in control, and play the game out till the allotted time; play well, every day is your season of IPL – Integrated Power of Living!

Shahir
22 April 2012

Pain or Suffering - An Intelligent Choice

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding / and you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief” wrote Kahlil Gibran in “The Prophet”

We see many around us in pain; we see many around us suffering. What we often fail to see is the difference between the pain they endure as a natural phenomenon of existence and the suffering they chose as a conscious choice in life.

Pain is inevitable; many things we face in life can inflict pain on us – either influenced through a foreign substance disturbing the status-quo of our body or an internal imbalance causing a disturbance to the functioning of our system. A thorn piercing our feet cause pain; on a fine morning as we wake up we might realize our eyes are swollen and it’s causing pain too. These fluctuations in sensation that we call pain are a truth of life – inevitable.

Suffering is a choice; to suffer is to feel or bear with disagreeable effects; dictionary has in it another definition of ‘to allow’; it is an allowance we give ourselves through a decision we make, a choice from a basket of options we have in life, an unnecessary allowance. How a friend treated you a few years back or a loss of share in the stock-market or a twist in your career might have caused ‘pain’ at that moment. That pain is inevitable to the nature of cause – a normal response of our system to an incident of that kind from a person you trust or a possession you held so dear or a dream you kept so high. Thinking about it years after, today, and feeling painful transforms that sensation to a different dimension – that’s suffering. That suffering is a choice. You are oscillating to a dead moment in the past and breathing life to it, inhaling its toxic emotions and becoming intoxicated and derailing from your path that otherwise leads otherwise to success.

Acceptance leads us to the liberation. If you are wearing a suit and it suddenly happened to rain, raindrops falling on your suit, you suffer from the awareness that your suit will be damaged and with the thoughts of how you will get to a shade! The friction causes suffering, and the after-thoughts that follows. A child playing in that rain, or a young couple in the beach walking in the rain ‘accepted’ that moment as inevitable, and they do not go through that friction, but in that acceptance they rather enjoy the pleasantness of that moment. Should you in a flip of time decide to walk in that rain and not allow the thoughts of damaging your suit or possible illness infiltrate your logic, perhaps you too would have enjoyed it the same manner, attain that liberation. In acceptance, we are liberating the friction of battle that take place in our mind caused by the discrepancy of reality and expectations – or our perception of what life should be, than what it is.

Our pain is in this moment – a cut, a bruise, a headache, a heart-break! That’s inevitable. But our sufferings are connected to a glorious moment in the past or a dream of the future, or a dark moment in the yesteryears or a bright hope in an uncertain future. Most of what we suffer is the pain of leaving behind something in the past or the friction of designing the skeleton of an uncertain future – a future that can’t be reached if ‘now’ is not lived to its fullest!

In a world where the powerful and the manipulative minds and hands rule the roost, in a world where the formal mechanisms of governance itself water the roots of terrorism in different disguise, we are offered with reasons in abundance to suffer – the news we watch, the stories that unfold, the helplessness we live with to influence, so on and so forth. It becomes only an intelligent choice before us then to have an awareness of the ‘now’ and accept its inevitability, that, in that acceptance we realize that this is all what it can be, a thought that will fail to disturb the inner peace and the balance.

Shahir

Summer Parenting When The Heat Is On!

Summer Holidays! Most parents are equally puzzled and excited too when faced with engaging their children productively during summer holidays! Sensing the opportunity, the trainers and others alike in the city pull their sleeves to organize various summer camps and parents rush to enroll them in the pretext of character development, though in some cases it’s just an outsourced parenting!

While summer camps are indeed a good platform for children to develop a holistic approach towards life if organized well with an appropriate ratio of facilitators and participants, there are many activities parents can think of and drive at home too, which will also enrich their bonding. Just as in the corporate world you adjust the operation to the climatic changes of the market, it is inevitable that we see this ‘summer holidays’ as a climatic change at home and adjust our parenting style according to its demands.

Who wouldn’t want a bicycle, or a teddy bear, or a ticket to an IPL match? Motivating children to work towards an incentive is perhaps one of the first steps in engaging them in productive activities that will reshape them. Naturally, incentives that ‘you’ offer them may be less valued than the incentives that you agree after a discussion ‘with them’ for what they value most. Making them feel they are the winners is by itself a motivator.

The incentive will turn out to be an investment if the child indeed qualifies and earn his reward, for, in the process of earning that incentive during this period, the child would have registered in his subconscious mind many habits that will at some point in his life serve him good. Once you have set up an incentive that you know the child would jump at, we then set some goals with clear milestones. Imagine a big chart put up on the wall that highlights the different goals in colour, the weekly milestones that you and the child together will discuss on a daily basis! It is an opportunity to celebrate little successes every time they are getting closer to their milestones, and an opportunity to visually coach and guide when he is falling short. The child may not correct immediately, nonetheless, the achievements and shortfalls are inevitably registered in his subconscious mind and it will process on its own over a period of time.

In setting goals, it is important that the children are involved fully, and as parents our role is to guide, and bring to their conscious surface the kind of goals that you are expecting – subtly aimed at the areas you know he needs improvement. Is it discipline, is it time management, is it ability to talk to visitors at home – you decide. It must be clear to the child that this project is not an option and this is how the summer will be, however there could be a basket of options of activities they could choose from, or of their own if you are convinced it could yield results. The discussions on the project should not be sidelined to a marginal conversation over dinner or in between attending your business calls or reading newspaper, and must be a meeting as important as the meeting you chaired your office on the twenty-second floor with the CEO. It has to be a conscious discussion.

These activities doesn’t have to be big and glamorous; it could be a few action metaphors that would imbibe in him certain qualities and values qualifying for a score for each activity, as simple as assigning him duty to fold his blanket every morning, stacking away the newspapers and magazines in its designated areas, so on and so forth. Get them write a Summer Diary – a journal to document their activities in summer, or the least, have them write the qualities they observed in the IPL players they are closely following. Have them learn ‘shloka’s or verses from your holy books connecting with spiritual values and write how it relates to their friends or neighbourhood, as enthusiastic as you were to send him for guitar classes!

While summer camps may teach him to swim well in a pool, these camps that you organize at home will help him swim through the tides of life.

The Contrast

I attended a funeral the other day – funeral of a man, like many others whose hands are briskly held and pulled behind the curtain of life by the extended reach of death, who had a few more unfinished patches of half sewn hopes.

Sitting down in a corner, observing the expressions in the face of people who visited the house on that day, I had many things to write and share; my thoughts seem to have fallen down and lost under the dead leaves of time, such that I am now unable to write what I then wanted to write.

I am not getting the beginning to write about that sad ending!

When the priest was waited for, I heard someone inquire ‘did he arrive yet’?

When the ambulance was waited for, I heard many inquiring ‘did they bring ‘the body’ yet’?

Validity of his name is expired. His name was of no use anymore. He was referred to as ‘the body’.

Death is not as much a concern for the dying or the dead than it is for those who are left behind; men stood silently with men whom they knew. Men stood staring at ‘death’ leaning against the wall, or they searched for life on the floor as they stood looking down, plunged in thoughts of what is inevitable! The old among them – what must have been going on in their minds? The young, they were aware too in the attributes of death that doesn’t discriminate the old and the young.

Time chose to slow down; is it the fear of death or the respect for the dead that the men in waiting had lost their voice as they spoke to each other, that I could only hear whispers that failed to beat the tick-tock of the clock’s pendulum that oscillated between the two ends of now and then.

Which one of my word is perhaps the last I will speak? Which one of my deeds is perhaps the last I will act?

Faith in the plans I draw for the time to come is lost when I see the heap of dreams lying scattered in the silence of his wife and children. Yet I know that it is in that faith and in the actions that follows that you build and leave a legacy for those you will leave behind, though life never fails to throw at you examples of stark realities as this that instantaneously ripped away through the center a piece of dream that was core to the existence of that family.

There was a silent question that perhaps everyone asked in their minds un-doubtful of this inevitable touch of exhausting time, and perhaps a silent resolution in their hearts to make their life better, as they escorted ‘the body’ on its final journey!

Human race have grown its capability to annihilate races in pursuit of power and positions; yet, how humbled they become when they see reminders of that inevitable moment when you carry nothing that you fought for, rather, you are being carried to a place that you’ve been reminded all the while!

Shahir

Alternate Seasons!

Back home!!

In a few months of being away, how children change – growing up!

Their conversation has changed; the choice of words they learned to use, or not to use amuses me, and amazes too. When Naisha has become more logic and speaks of the little science she learned in school and relate it to the daily motion of life, Mariam has learned to express in words her emotions of heart more than before, and has become expressive of the little things that matters most to her.

Their expressions are different, changed!! They have hopes that they are able to communicate – Mariam do not want me to be with my laptop except when I have ‘homework’ as she put, and can’t understand why I have to be in Iraq when all her friends dad’s doesn’t have to!

What they laugh for, and why they become silent are all symbolic of their growth – the life I missed to experience! When did Mariam grew up to feel ‘shy’!

Physical expressions of love has become a matter of utmost importance to them, more than before; a hug is replenished every now and then with a heartfelt rhyming expression of ‘I love you Papa,’ and an affectionate kiss that fractures the cheek bone.

Whom we love, they love too. Whom we dislike, they dislike too – that’s how the solidarity is expressed, that we do not want what you do not want, and embrace what we embrace. Mariam’s typhoid has taken a toll on her, depriving her of the food she loves most and limiting her to the bare essentials! Our way of expressing our solidarity with her is to not have anything that she can’t, and wait till she will recover fully when she can then have all the chocolates and candies we bought! It tests Naisha’s patience, though perhaps it might also train her to be a person of values!

If I were to pray for one thing that I am sure of having granted as a boon, perhaps as any parent would, that would be to give me whatever illness and misfortunes that are destined for them, so that they are not tested by the brutality of life and are blessed to enjoy the spring and summer alike, for everything I endure is with their welfare alone in mind!

The soothing chants from the temple, the smell of spices and flowers in the air, the dynamic sound of life from the neighboring streets, Jaysree aunty's 'rasam' and all that and more, these alternate seasons of life is perhaps what life is all about - a constant experience of transition!!

Shahir