Making sense of that non-commital answer 'Depends!'

If there's one answer that drives us all nuts, it's 'Depends!'

And there wouldn't be a surprise if your reaction to the above statement is 'Depends!'

Actually 'Depends' is such a dependable answer because it seems to tread those fine lines between 'right' and 'wrong'. Our assessment of 'right' and 'wrong' is always so pathetic that we tend to depend on 'Depends!' to save ourselves. And so very often.

I won't be wrong to say that 'Depends!' means 'Debatable but let's not debate!'

Suppose I depend on the old saying 'excess of anything is bad', then I can also say, 'excess of rightness is wrong'. That might also tempt me to say, 'excess of wrongness is right'. And I might so rightly sound foolish with that excess of wrongness.

Anyway, have a look at this 2x2 matrix on the debate between means/methods and consequences. More elaborately, right and wrong means/methods, and right and wrong consequences.

If right and wrong always involve the 'Depends!' answer, then this matrix above doesn't accommodate explicitly the space for 'Depends!'. No?!

How and where do we accommodate 'Depends!'? Of course, between the Right and the Wrong, no?

Let's make some space...

That's the playing field. Plus-shape :)!

See if you can play around in this field. Take an example:

Means/Method = Coca Cola's incredibly frequent cute advertisements saying 'Open Happiness'

Consequence = Obesity among drinkers of Coca Cola

Can you place it in the matrix? And likewise many other things...

This Matrix of Means/Method and Consequence is just one way to make us ponder... Scale and Consequence. Ways of Reminding and Ways of Influencing. And whatever else you can conjure up, here's the plus-shape playing field.

Friend, not a follower

Earlier when I would befriend someone on FB, I would get that person's updates on my timeline (basis whatever algorithm FB has). There was no choice.

For some time now, FB has given us a choice. If you don't want to see updates from certain 'friends' on FB, you can 'unfollow'. In which case, you don't have to 'unfriend' to avoid the updates. Just 'unfollow'.

The default is 'follow'. When you befriend someone, FB assumes you'll 'follow' this friend. Follow = Receive updates on our timeline.

Befriend. Unfriend. Follow. Unfollow. Meanings galore.

Let me just open the box using a two-by-two window!

First you shape the system, then the system shapes you?

Not really. First they shape FB, then they shape you!

In a bid to have good conversations with all the friends 'befriended' on FB, a few minutes back I was engaged in calibrating the Notification Preferences of my FB account.

After my clicking some "unfollowing" buttons, FB throws a message:

"It looks like you’re using this feature in a way it wasn’t meant to be used. Please slow down, or you could be blocked from using it."

Funny this is, they've built a system in which users might end up taking up such an activity. And if FB has throw such a message, clearly they dislike such an activity or perhaps they didn't anticipate such an activity. Hurts their business, does it?

The verbiage of the warning message above is an interesting one. Read again:

"It looks like you’re using this feature in a way it wasn’t meant to be used. Please slow down, or you could be blocked from using it."

What do they mean 'it wasn't meant to'? Are they the arbiters and judges of meaning?

'Slow down'. What's that? Are they to decide how fast or how slow should I be operating the system?

As easy as it is to consume and post the rubbish that appears on our newsfeed, FB is alright if we suffer from infobesity. FB doesn't want us to get fitter however.

The Curious Case Of Dubious Quality At Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar

Have been wanting to record this instance for quite a few days. Finally.

In the last few years, a lot of construction and building work has taken place at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar.

Natural stone and granite have also been used in huge quantities.

We've been interested ever since this work began some years back. A few months back we did really get a chance, a small window to show what we can do, what we can supply, the quality et al. We were optimistic.

The construction company (a giant of a company in India) contracted by the Govt. of Gujarat
showed us the kind of material they expected from their suppliers. All top-notch.

We submitted quotations for high-quality in all kinds of stone they asked for, thinking it's such a big project. Such important work, such big construction company.

They found our quotation high. They bought the material from some other supplier(s).

We were disappointed. Just exactly why we were rejected, we were curious. So we went there for a courtesy call and to see what's getting used. The Project Manager proudly urged us to walk around and see the high-quality material they bought at dirt-cheap prices.

When you happen to visit Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar and walk around the Salt Mountain, check the quality of Brown/Yellow Kota Stone. We don't have the audacity to stock even a few samples of that kind of material, forget supplying it to any project.

That's the lamentation part of this post.

What perplexes me is, except a visual inspection, there's no other way to define quality in natural stone. Even a visual inspection will be subject to debate for there's yet no way for us, or them, to articulate and pinpoint and measure the aspects of high-quality, in spite of whatever words written or spoken, unless there's a genuine intention to do quality work. (For example, out here the word 'quality' sounds vacuous! You'll believe only when you see the material with your own eyes and feel it with your own touch.)

Even if we were to articulate the aspects of high-quality, only 100% visual monitoring can prove us right on our judgment of the ridiculous quality but that's not something that we can undertake or they would undertake and disclose.

Quality, material, words, inspection, chuck them! Humein toh Gandhiji se matlab hai!

Out-of-the-box solutions

often come from outsiders. Or comes when we are outside the box, literally or figuratively.

So 3 possible forms of outsider.

1) I am into jewelry retail. Someone who doesn't do the same is an outsider.
2) I am into jewelry retail. Example, I am showering and I get a cracking thought about jewelry retail.  I myself become the outsider. Literally.
3) I am into jewelry retail. I am thinking about something else sitting at my desk in the shop/office and suddenly I get a cracking thought about jewelry retail. Again I become the outsider. Figuratively.

First definition suggests that consultants, friends, father, brother, brother-in-law, jewelry manufacturer, etc. all these can be called outsiders.

I am more keen on looking at second and third definitions. Because the same person turns out to be an insider as well as an outsider.

In the second definition, I've mentioned 'showering' to suggest outsideness. However, it could just be anything. It could also be bird-watching. Or travelling. Or chilling on a beach. Or it could be working on a project other than jewelry retail.

Focus is important for thinking. So is outsideness. It makes sense to be working on at least two projects in any given time-frame.

Interesting Things and Emptiness

In the physical-store windows of all kinds, we see different kinds of things that the shop-keeper stocks and sells. Most often some unusual or interesting things in the window attract our attention and prompt us to enter and check out the stuff.

Once past the entrance windows, we see sections dedicated to a single category of goods.

When we enter an electronics shop like Croma or Vijay Sales, we often encounter number of television screens lined up on the wall. Most often all showing the same visuals. Thankfully. You can focus on one screen. And then another without feeling like you are missing out on something.

When we go to the homepages of the big ecommerce sites, 'blocks of visuals' like TV screens described above stare at us. So what do we stare at? Would depend on what frame we are in. Looking for very specific stuff or just generally in a mood to shop. If we are looking for very specific stuff, do we these blocks of visuals help? Even if we aren't looking for specific stuff, do these blocks help?

I often find that these blocks of visuals on homepages are least helpful to me. And there are many such sub-homepages too that are not really helpful. Only when I really enter a section-page that has listed the specific goods that I really get a sense to getting closer to the thing I am looking for. And even then, I consider myself lucky if I get the stuff I have in mind. And checking beyond a certain number of listings certainly makes it less interesting to shop.

It seems to me that these portals have arranged themselves in this way since they want to offer a lot of interesting things to us in a short span of time so that we can find what we want in a short span of time. Or so that we can spend a hell lot of time browsing the interesting things so that we can eventually buy the most interesting thing. Does it happen that way? Has it happened that way with you?

Made in School and Sucks

After birth, how much time does a child spend with parents?

If asked, parents would prefer the child to stay at school for as long as possible. Why? Coz they believe that their child learns and grows in school.

If we look at the quality of adult individuals, I would have doubts about learning and growing in school.

Actually after school, parents send their kids to tuition classes and other classes. There are tuition classes all around our store. I observe kids vigorously copying their homework received at tuition classes right before they enter these classes.

Do we then understand that typically parents are incapable of instructing and teaching their child? And therefore, they banish the child from their sights for a really long time of the day? Or do we understand that parents are unwilling to take responsibility of building their child into a great individual?

Or all my questions are ridiculous. Things are just fine.

Gandhiji and the tragedy of getting my clothes ironed

I thought about this some 5 days back.

In my ways of clothing myself, I thought I had reached a Gandhian simplicity. And on occasions I felt proud of it. Yes, thought of matching Gandhiji in matters of fashion can make anyone proud.

So I reached for my lush navy blue Mufti trousers, pulled them on and buttoned myself. And I let my palms caress my butts and feel the freshness of a ironed and washed pair of trousers.

Tragedy has epic proportions and minute ones too. I felt some burnt ends of the stitches that shaped my beloved trousers. For a little moment I felt the pinch of spending yet again, in spite of my simplified wardrobe, on a pair of blue trousers. Oh my Gandhiji!

Actually, Gandhiji surely had it better than I think. May be coz of the environment, or the lack of options available, or pure (intentional or inadvertent) wisdom.

So what if I wear only two colors - white and blue. So what if my trousers are always blue and my shirts always white. My iron-man has a world of options to contend with. My colors and others' colors. The fabric of my clothes and the fabrics of others' clothes. The content of poly-material in my clothes and the content of poly-material in others' clothes. The styling of my trousers and styling of other people's trousers.

And he has to iron them all in a given time to make sure he gets enough to sleep peacefully somehow. He has to show courage and strength to iron them all and feel music in life.

Let's say I want to feel at ease and peace, and also master my skill in the 100 square feet of space I occupy. I would stick to my drum-set. This man sticks to his coals and bicep-exercising mechanical iron. He masters it. He burns whatever comes in the way. He folds them nice and tight. Thinks he has mastered it all. All day long. And sleeps.

I might have to pay a visit to the mall yet again. Perhaps, before that think whether Gandhiji got his khadi ironed or not.

Pics courtesy: laudafinem.com and paulniederer.com

On Andy-Amelie and Coaching

Headline reads Andy appoints Amelie as his new coach. If you read this, you'll gather that for now it's limited to Wimbledon 2014.

The surprise as projected by the media is 'a male player appointing a female as coach'. If you read the article linked to earlier, you'll see that male players have appointed 'females' as their coaches earlier as well. Besides, female players have so often have had male coaches (if I am not mistaken, most female players do).

I haven't played a sport at any significantly high levels, but I have surely trained under 'coaches'. And while I haven't been a sports-coach, I have coached many a student so far under various guises.

To add, with the realization that help's available nowhere and nobody's helping me surely, I have been a coach to myself, and it has been a painstaking ultra-time-consuming process of coaching myself. It takes immense amount of what sounds like self-criticism. An attitude like this among youngsters is often labelled (mistakenly) as 'lack of confidence' or need for 'personality development'.

Andy's announcement of Amelie as her coach makes one review what 'coaching' is and who can be a 'coach'.

While in professional contexts, especially sports, naming and appointing coaches is explicit, coaches come in all forms. Teacher in a school (Taare Zameen Par style), elder brother at home, unusual friend at school, may be girl-friend, a boss et al. Just that the name 'coach' isn't explicit. We are all aware of the famous 'Eklavya-Dronacharya' coaching relationship. Rancho for his friends in 3 Idiots.

In my mind, I have no doubt that every single person who is sensitive to some area of performance and desires to achieve (as Aamir puts it in 3 Idiots) excellence, needs a coach-figure, if not all the time, surely at certain critical junctures in life and preparation. Having said that, those critical junctures are unidentifiable so very often. Which essentially means that this coach-figure is needed all the time.

I bowled in the nets imitating different bowlers. Sometimes I bowled well, sometimes pathetically. Was prodigious at swing but often went down the leg. Coaches would point out the errors sometimes but none pointed out that my front foot (left leg for a right hand bowler) was landing wrongly. I wonder they knew such nuances. I wonder they observed me closely. I wonder they were inclined to focus on any particular individual, since they had numerous pupils to oversee. Of course, I was always an introvert and 'egoistic' stoical moody affable kind of person. But I was at least 15 or 20 years younger than these coaches. Who would harness the raw energy. The one possessing it or the one watching it? I identified this problem with my bowling action just a couple or 3 years back!

Anyway, to close this, coaching requires an engagement that touches the deepest parts of your being. An engagement similar to a love-relationship in many respects. Great eyes, great observation, great reading of skills (not necessarily 'having' the skills) and temperament, great articulation and a lot more. Ivan Lendl helped Andy win the big title. Females might be different in some ways from males but in coaching 'gender' surely isn't a clinching point, and Amelie might just be more effective. Am watching closely.

Photo courtesy: www.telegraph.co.uk

Weather, Food, Movement

A couple of months back, I met the head trainer at a new gym nearby (right above Mississippi Earrings).

While talking, I told him that I don't like 'gyms' as we know them. I prefer running in the open, ground or road. Working out in a garden-like environment than in closed air-conditioned chambers.

He summarized in turn. For fitness 3 things matter: weather, food and moving in that weather. He went on, air-conditioning cuts the weather out. Food is not in gyms' control. And a body among mechanical apparatus does not compare to a body in the sand.

The work environment - corporate, educational, political et al - at numerous mighty places is very much like the gyms. One feels one's exercising but doesn't get substantially fitter.

Ph.D. = Phoolish Doctor?

It's still a 'may' headline but am positive. A lot of places don't consider me suitable in a 'teacher' role simply coz of the Ph.D. requirement.

In the same breath, when I talk with Ph.D.s I am astonished at the (lack of) quality with which a good number of these places make do.

And I can only imagine what's the state of affairs at not-so-known B-schools, and they simply take 2 mighty years away. The folks are reeling under shortages of faculty, and of the grey matter in the heads of their faculty, and then release an ad saying they want 'Ph.D.'. Meanwhile students, when they go out looking for well-paying jobs, brandish an MBA on their CVs, with obnoxious grammar and spelling mistakes haloing that MBA.

Disturbing pic of my early morning bedroom and how the Japanese got it right

The funniness of what we call as 'bedroom', in the modern context, has dawned upon me. And quite conclusively.

In the second line of the wikipedia page on 'bedroom', you find this:

To be considered a bedroom the room needs to have a bed.

Actually, this line makes it feel like 'bed' is just one of the objects in the bedroom. Quite so. But mathematics isn't just about numbers. It's also about space. The modern bedroom is typically filled with the bed, in a manner that no other substantial object can be placed or accommodated in the bedroom. At least, for the majority of people who've been able to afford a bedroom.

And that no other substantial object can be placed in the bedroom, means other than resting or sleeping or making love (variants of the same posture I would say), no substantial activity can take place.

Given that a mighty number of us find ourselves doing work which doesn't quite make us exert ourselves, at least physically, in any great manner, this bedroom turns out to be a great roadblock on the way to good health. Let me elaborate.

We have risen substantially in population. Per capita space available is very limited. That's the reason we find such congestion on the roads, in the malls, in the gyms et al. And when I mention gym, I can easily say that reaching the gym is also an inconvenience in general, in a world which has made contraptions for convenience of all kinds even for the smallest of things we do.

After entering the gym, the nightmare doesn't end. Certain gadgets or equipment might have queues for use.

That makes whatever per capita space available to us a really precious thing. Space that is undividedly available for personal use, no matter the time. And that is occupied by the bed.

First you shape the building, then the building shapes you.

So you start shaping your undivided personal space with a good bed in the little space you have for yourself. Now is the bed's turn to shape you. And shapes you, it does. Pretty well.

Am I saying bed isn't needed?

Nope! Given the space an individual has to himself and the work he does in the modern context, I am saying naming the space blindly as 'bedroom' has entailed a massive cost on our well-being. We've taken it for granted that such a space can be nothing but a 'bedroom'. And the thing that we end up doing is installing a bed that doesn't leave much space for very very important things. And our architects and interior designers perpetuate the crime.

Let me go back a bit. When the convenient technologies weren't available and when majority of the people exerted themselves physically and really hard during the day, they perhaps found it very very comforting to come back home, do nothing more than cooking and eating, and simply go to bed. Having a ready mattress would be the perfect luxury. Since the space outside the house exercised majority of the people, inside the house dedicating space to sleeping was just a great complement. But now, no longer so.

In fact, there's very little space outside for healthy exertion. And, even inside, there's mostly the bed.

If we really want to make the space available count and if we really want a healthy body, here are a couple of things.

Futon. We all have seen this thing. From wikipedia:

A futon is traditional Japanese bedding consisting of padded mattresses and quilts pliable enough to be folded and stored away during the day, allowing the room to serve for purposes other than as a bedroom.

Perfect!

There's more. Wall-bed. Also called Murphy bed. Wikipedia narrates the legend:

According to legend, he (William Lawrence Murphy) was wooing an opera singer, but living in a one-room apartment in San Francisco, and the moral code of the time frowned upon a woman entering a man's bedroom. Murphy's invention converted his bedroom into a parlor, enabling him to entertain.

Now that surely takes care of a man's health, no!

Specifics are...

painful!

Most often we don't see them in advance. We just chance upon them. And then we find painful to address them.

If you can see a lot of specifics in advance, you are lucky. The only thing then is getting the people who (or who might) matter to see the same specifics. Now, that's also painful.

A story of wealth-making and classroom

I think wealth and wealth-making concerns all of us, in spite of the fact that we forever debate its meaning and never ever come to a great conclusion.

But all of us, at least majority of us, buy the point that we should have wealth and we should make wealth.

Now that 'we should make wealth' is such an overwhelming agreement among the people of the world, doesn't it sound obvious that every kid must learn 'how to make wealth'.

And the isn't it obvious that there should be schools explicitly meant for the purpose of the teaching 'wealth-making' and awarding degrees like 'Master of Wealth Creation'.

I am talking rubbish! I don't understand that wealth creation is a result of doing something.

Mark those last two words 'doing something'. Now question, how is a classroom defining 'doing something'. How is a classroom teaching the class about 'doing something'?

Imagine such ill-defined words as 'wealth' and 'doing something', and every classroom filled for those two ill-defined words. Degrees and yet more degrees awarded in pursuit of the ill-defined meaning of such words.

If you look up the Oxford dictionary (or deploy any other trick) to prove me wrong that these words are ill-defined, don't crib about your salary.

A Bedroom Story

That innocuous looking expression, bedroom, sometimes wreaks havoc in my evolving way of daily working.

Bed and room. Room is space. Bed is the object that occupies that space. I have a problem with occupation of space.

If space is the currency, then the best returns are obtained when it facilitates a range of movements. Putting a bed permanently in that space means now you can move through the space only in certain ways. To the extent of limitation in movements, returns diminish.

When I observe the birds make nests, I realize that they do so, not for their living, but for making sure that their young ones survive a certain amount of time after birth. After that phase, the nest might get destroyed. But birds fly and survive nonetheless.

It isn't a stretch of imagination to understand that houses must have been just a way of defense at one point. We have read about that some time in our life.

To raise a question like where do we sleep if we don't have bed, is to confuse the action of sleeping with the object, (a permanently space-occupying) bed. And that is a mighty confusion.

We will indulge in sleeping regardless of the fact there's a bed or not. When the per capita space is so limited anyway, and when we find ourselves in this weird state of working out like mannequins behind glass-windows of a showroom-like gym, I think it's time rethink the permanence of occupation of space by this thing called bed.

If bed were equal to sleeping, everyone should fall asleep as soon as one lies on the bed, no?

That last rhetorical question leads me to this inference. I sense since bed mightily limits the range of movements you can do in a given space, a lot of us find it difficult to sleep, in spite of the best of beds available to us.

You'll sleep, rest, relax only when the body moves. Body will move only when there's enough space to indulge in movement of all kinds. And in the same breath, body stays fit only when it undergoes a range of movements day after day.

So while moving and sleeping are important for fitness, a permanently space occupying bed might actually be working against both the actions.

The ad-driven revenue model for content sites

I have no problems with them from this moment. And here are some points.

I understand that advertisements offer a way for content-driven sites to survive and earn. So far it's innocuous.

I used to get disturbed whenever I clicked an ad flashing right beside the article I would be reading, or a promo-link embedded within a piece of text. Imagine rushing out of a meeting that felt like worthy of your time and never returning to the room again. What's the purpose of that publisher who published the text that resides beside the tempting ad?

The problem gets yet more compounded when the writer talks about the nuisance of using cars on the congested Indian roads and there's an ad promoting a long sedan right beside that post. What does a reader believe? What does a reader believe about what the publisher believes in? Is the aim of such publishing to make the reader understand the virtues of believing paradoxes? And does the reader visit such sites to learn the skill of paradox assimilation?

Motorcycle ads on motorcycle blogs seem a great match. Yesterday I visited this blog that I often visit. The post I was reading was cautiously critical of the move of launching Mahindra Centuro. Right beside I noticed an ad promoting that very motorcycle. No problem so far but if I had left the post midway by clicking the ad, guess it would be an incomplete sort of experience. I read the post and then checked out the motorcycle by clicking the ad. Felt appropriate.

And it isn't a stretch of imagination to apply these occurrences to other media like TV or Radio or newspaper/magazines et al. And I have no doubts that the damage to people's understanding of the world is unprecedented even though seemingly unmeasurable.

One thing I can say for such content-driven sites, where conflicts between advertising and their messages are rampant and blatant, is the publishers aren't doing enough to enhance a reader's understanding in spite of the revenues they earn because of the readers visiting their sites. I think that's such a waste of the opportunity that the readers have given them.

Web-driven Learning Checklist for the Autodidact

When I want to learn/learn about something, I typically find myself referring to these, not necessarily in the same order:

1. www.Dictionary.com - Recently I found myself exploring the subject of 'friction' and I came across the word 'Tribology'. Unaware of the precise meaning, it helped to check dictionary dot com before trying to explore the subject further.
2. www.Amazon.com - Have this peculiar habit of checking books on the subject before googling it or checking it on Wikipedia.
3. Kindle ebook samples - If one has a smartphone and has downloaded the Kindle app, it proves to be an amazing resources for sampling the subject in fairly good detail without committing monetary resources.
4. www.Wikipedia.com - It's a no-brainer. You want a good view at almost work or subject under the sun, you might find this a very helpful resource almost every single time. Though, certain technical areas which we are not exposed to at all might be difficult to follow on occasions.
5. www.Google.com - Search = Google. I don't need to say much. But so often I refer to it after I've checked the above 4 resources.
6. Google Images - Typically, when I am researching a physical object, firstly I like to see its different avatars, its forms, shapes and so on. Going through the images is like enabling instant awareness and invoking associations.
7. www.Youtube.com - Video always convinces. Captures attention easily and facilitates concentration sometimes through entertaining and moving presentation of concepts.
8. Twitter handles and FB pages dedicated to the term/the subject are good reminders. But they don't yet seem to aid us in learning like the other resources do.

RIP Umesh Shinde

A friend, Harish Jain, expressed this on FB:

It hurts to wake up and read a news that says a newly wed guy died because of pothole on the road. Life has really gone cheaper than the cost of filling these holes. BMC - Please make a list of all the holes and put a price for filling each one of them. I can assure you that people will come out and pay you for that also other than the taxes. RIP Umesh Shinde.

And I had this to say:

I have been riding slowly. I have been driving slowly. For the co-traveller, typically it's boring but then I start showing my slow-motion pothole dodging skills and it all becomes thoroughly entertaining. And I feel so elegant to myself. 

My description is absurd but it's the truth, at least in my context. But when incidents like these happen, I wonder how absurd it would be to rise in unison against a pothole-indifferent government.

"You have to do this."

Or, "This is the task ahead of us."

The first one's a command emerging out of one's superiority complex. It might not evoke a response as much as it demands a report. Therefore, good big hierarchical set ups so often have reporting as a behavior, instead of responding, among their employees.

My sense is, reporting corrodes, responding creates.

Per Capita Nautanki Space

When I visit this lovely garden, morning or evening, I find a lot of people doing crazy things (no sexual innuendoes here) in the name of exercising. Perhaps when they see me running endlessly in circles for hours or doing some kind of stretching, they might amuse themselves thinking I am such a crazy guy.

Which brings me to this point. The landscape of this garden is quite wonderful. It offers relatively free and solitudinal and less-publicly-observable spaces to visitors. Guess it's this nature of the garden that prompts people to do crazy things and stay happy and feel healthy.

One of the casualties of modern town-planning is the Per Capita Nautanki Space (PCNS). If somehow that's given more conscious attention in planning, we might do a world of good to people's health.