Karl Slym - A Tragedy utterly pointless

All of 51 years old.

MBA from Stanford.

Sloan fellow.

CV that reads like running down the list of Fortune 500.

Toyota, GM, GM Europe, face of GM in India, stint in Shanghai, handpicked by Ratan Tata to be the MD of Tata Motors.

A gifted athlete.

A sharp mind that can sieve the surplus from the bane of modern management, PowerPoint presentations.

And ask pertinent questions, usually unanswerable.

It comes as a shock to hear the news.

If you have an argument with your wife over “domestic issues”, there are million ways to solve them.

To start with you could have thrown her out of the window.

What is my takeaway? What will make a man happy? How much wealth is needed before one can say it is safe now? Read about the need for a “healthy dose of madness” in The Guardian today in an unrelated story.

That is what is missing in the world today, if someone were to ask me.

We take life seriously, too seriously.

So what if something is screwed up. What is un-mendable in this universe? Let us spend some time to fix it. If it is not fixable, let’s move on.

Death is too final, irreversible. No one can avoid it. What is the point in inviting it? Isn’t it too scary to end it all? Why attempt something that can’t be corrected or improved?

Makes me wonder……………….

In the meantime TML will do well if they put all their top honchos in the ground floor.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving (A little late)

I am 48. One reaches this age and ends up developing a profile. People know you as a person with certain traits or they realize them as they get to know you. I was taking stock on what defines me and more importantly who played a role in that which defines me. Here I am thanking them.

Interest in reading                                          My brother Raja, Stanley Paul Memury and Sethu

Interest in Music                                            Pattabhi, Stanley Paul Memury

Desire to write                                               John Irving (and he does not even know that I exist)

Obsession with Single Malt                            Manoj Joglekar

Photography                                                 Radu Ciocirlie

Working out                                                 Cristi Macovei, Anoop

How to stay young at heart                           Nanavati, Vivek, Hrishi, Narendiran, my children

Football                                                       Sai       

How to stay close w/o being overbearing      Shilpa and Abhishek

Stopped watching Cricket                            BCCI

Stopped watching women tennis                   Williams sisters

Tennis                                                          McEnroe and Federer.

Writers who influenced most                         Maugham, Irving, Fowles, Orwell and Wodehouse

Music that influenced most                            Pink Floyd

Everything that is good                                  Mangalam

Everything deplorable                                   Self

Rediscovered Beer                                       Pilsner Urquell

Biking                                                          Anoop and Hanka

Cry, the beloved country.

My daughter lives alone in Bangalore.

And she survives one day at a time.

And I die every day!

Come to think of it, even if she were to stay with us, we would still die every day!

How much can she be on guard? Thanks to the enviable connect that we have established she is quite blunt in narrating her daily routine.

Of the virtual disrobing!

Of the blatant stares, filled with lust, often bordering on the ridicule but equally scary at times.

The thrust of the change into her palm by the bus conductor.

The usual, how obscene it sounds to even qualify this as “usual”, rubbing, groping and all other activities through which a male tries to get his body in contact with her for a few minutes!

Horror! Horror! A case of an erection rubbed against her in a crowded bus!

As she recounts all such travails, she ends up travelling back in time, revisits those unpleasant memories. Her whole body goes into a spasm, her fists clench, lips tremble and all of a sudden she stops. It is easy to understand why.

What is not easy to understand is why this happens?

Theories abound!

·                       We are a sex starved society!

·                       We do not discuss sex

·                       We are a hypocrite society.

·                       We are still a patriarchal society

More an excuse than a theory.

I am not here to recommend cures because I do not have a single damn clue. Also I am likely to be biased being father of a daughter.

My colleague, himself a father to two daughters, went livid when the minor of the heartrending Delhi case was tried in a juvenile court and was let off with a three year sentence. His reaction, I quote,

“I shall wait outside the prison and shoot that son of a bitch when he walks out”

This coming from a docile man who rarely, if ever, raises his voice!

I have a son too!

How do I prepare him to become a person with a character?

I do all the usual things that I know best.

I show him films that I hope helps a man to value character.

To Sir with Love.

Scent of a woman.

Judgment at Nuremberg.

Dead Poets Society

The lingering fear is he may end up watching Irreversible on the sly!

I try to revisit my childhood and strain to recollect what my father did!

Zilch!

Still I turned out OK. As a matter of fact I do not recall having a conversation with him that lasted more than 80 seconds.

As I said earlier, I am clueless.

And I am worried.

Midst all this mental soliloquy, another day comes to an end.

My daughter comes on Skype to say good night.

She survived yet another day.

Not without scars, certainly. She stopped sharing all her tribulations.

My son is trying to figure out if Benzene molecule should be a hexagonal structure or a circle!

Wife dearest is juggling adroitly her endless commitments with an ease that continues to amaze me.

And I go to bed.

And stay awake the whole night.

Shit scared.

Ameya / Arjun Makes me gasp !

Was listening to "Maria" and thinking about the boys

Result was this song 

He takes a pen and fakes a grin
His face has got a frown
He munches through his cereal
And his sketches are too grim
And just beside his sketchbook
He has crayons in a bag

I often heard him cursing his syllabi

He’s always late for every meal
But his hunger pang is real
He’s always late for every class
Except for Art n Craft
I love to have to say it
But I very firmly feel
Ameya/Arjun ‘s not an ordinary baby

I’d like to say a word in his behalf
Arjun/Ameya will make you gasp!

How do you solve a problem like A/A
How do you snare an eagle in a cage?
How do you find a word that means A/A?
An iconoclast! A rebel! A Sage!

Many a thing you know you’d like to tell him
Many a thing he ought to understand
But how do you make him stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a spell within the wand!

Oh, how do you solve a problem like A/A?

How do you hold a stallion by a strand!

When I’m with him I’m impressed
Out of my depth and intrigued
And I never know exactly what he is

Grossly talented as ever
His talent is forever
He’s a batman! He’s a Stark! He’s a hulk!

He’d outsmart any geek
While staying really meek

He could draw a stunning pattern in his stride
He’s quiet!  He’s a storm!
He’s a demon! He’s a beast!
He’s a Thorn! He’s a rose!
He’s a boy!!!!!

How do you solve a problem like A/A
How do you snare an eagle in a cage?
How do you find a word that means A/A?
An iconoclast! A rebel! A Sage!

Many a thing you know you’d like to tell him
Many a thing he ought to understand
But how do you make him stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a spell within the wand!

Oh, how do you solve a problem like A/A?

How do you hold a stallion by a strand!

Shameful Indian :(

She is usually killed in the womb;

If she survives that then

Chances are that her mother will die in childbirth;

Chances are she will die of malnutrition;

Chances are she will be molested by one of her relatives;

Chances are she will be groped about while travelling in public transport;

Chances are she will add to the statistic “Honour killing”;

Chances are she will be sold and bought like cattle;

Chances are she will be killed for dowry;

Chances are she will die aborting her girl child;

Chances are she will be raped, paraded naked, gang raped, “mms”ed while being raped…..

What in the name of all that is holy is wrong with my countrymen?

DAWN

My timelapse of the dawn

Can be seen here

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Will you be able to smile if your daughter, who will turn two in 2 weeks’ time,  had spent the last 18 months in a hospital;

An ICU to be precise.

What is the frame of your mind when you see your colleagues planning on each Friday the weekend activities, when all you have to do is take turns to visit her in the hospital?

How about your son, who knows that he has a sister, but is not allowed to meet her and also has to sacrifice all those weekend getaways due to your hospital routine?

Do you feel envy when your daughter has made four helicopter trips to Prague while you, all of 42, have not even stepped into one?

Girls her age suffer once when their ears are pierced; she has a constant hypodermic on her arm and a tube into her neck!

They say believe in God! Moments like these I feel like saying Fuck You.

But the Father of this girl sports the biggest smile I have ever seen in my life. Says “I have to remain positive – life moves forward”

R.E.S.P.E.C.T