Has It Been A Month? Teddy Is Here!

How time flies!?! I cannot believe it’s been a month since I posted.  There’s lots that’s happened in that timeframe.  Maybe I’ll give an update in the next post.  For now, let me just say that I’m starting my business, things are going well with my cigar friend (after a very difficult couple of weeks leading to lots of adjustments), and it’s almost winter (i.e., Delhi summer is almost over…even though you still need the AC because it still gets very hot).

What I will talk about, though, is Teddy.  I have had Teddy for two weeks now.  He’s our mixed-Indian breed pup.  We got him two weeks ago from a pound, which in this case was someone’s apartment!  He was five or six weeks old then, depending on who you listen to.  We decided he was born in the last week of August, or more specifically, the beginning of the last week of August.  He’s seriously a handful!  It’s like having a human baby running around but you can never forget he’s also an animal.  He teeths like we’re familiar human babies do.  He also has feelings and emotions.  He gets hurt when you discipline him but you know it’s best for him and for you in the long-run.  It’s also the only way possible he’d be able to live with us.  That gives you mixed feelings sometimes but you also know you have to do it.  Like one of the many many articles I’ve read say: for a dog, it’s about exercise, discipline, and affection.  In that order!

I’ll put some pictures up soon!  Till then, hope you’re well!

Finally – My Long Lost NRI Returned Brother

I’ve found my NRI-returned-to-India long-lost brother!  That’s right, folks, it appears that I have hit upon a guy who will keep me sane because he’s going through the same crap I am!  It’s been a while since I came across someone who was humorous, intelligent, had the ability to make a good philosophical point, and, most importantly, someone who’s experiences I could relate to!  Tonight, I found one such soul - neoIndian – also a non-resident Indian (NRI) who returned to India.

Here are a couple of Neo’s posts that are right on the money:

a) Return to India myth #2.  Neo is absolutely right when he says the following:

Perhaps the most unsettling realization for Neo after his return to India has been this: For the rest of his life, he will almost certainly feel different from the local population – no matter where he stays in the world.

It’s the same for yours truly!  Damn!  Double damn!

b) Return to India myth #5. 

But yes, two years after moving to Bangalore, it’s been a “challenge” (don’t you just love euphemistic management jargon?) for the Neos to diversify their friends circle away from other US-returned people.

Neo’s neighbors (many of whom have never lived outside India), would be a great natural addition to his list of friends (and be a great source of convenient next-door play dates for Junior), but there are huge differences.

Granted Neo and his reasons for the differences are not the same as mine, the fact remains that what he says is absolutely right and relevant for my situation too.  I would love to build friendships with my neighbors and my cousins.  I’ve tried!  Unfortunately, I cannot completely (don’t you just love my ability to put a positive spin on things?) relate to the folks I meet here, even someone like my cigar friend.  My family keeps heckling me, much like they heckle Neo apparently, which I have to admit I am having great pleasure in knowing about.  (Alright, alright, keep your panties on – it’s not a sick pleasure.  I feel his pain.  It’s just nice to be reminded that others are going through the same thing every once in a while!)  Worse than my neighbors and cousins is trying to understand the people in the village of North Delhi and to try to get them to understand me.  To think only folks with a certain background will “get me” and accept me for who I am is truly sad.

(As an aside, my c.f. has recently been telling me that I need to be Indian since I’m living in India.  The other day, in quite an angry manner I must add, she said either I behave like Indians or I should leave India.  I was a bit flabbergasted to tell you the truth!  I had never had someone tell me in such serious terms that I should leave the country!  Unfortunately, I cannot do either right now.  This much is true, though, large degree of adoption of Indian behavior will never be possible for me.)

Now, where do I find other US-returned people in New Delhi?  In fact, last few weeks I have thinking of just that – meeting new people.  I thought maybe I can move near the sports complex in South Delhi and use sports as the medium.  Meeting people in The Village (henceforth, my term for North Delhi) is not an option.  I know I will have better luck hanging out with the crowd in a village in Rajasthan.  I might be able to make South Delhi work (okay, it’s sort of like the round peg in the square box thinking I’m following here, but you have to give me kudos for my very positive attempt of faking my reality into reality). 

Bombay is possible.  It’s a thought that again tried its damndest to shift its way from the back of my mind to the front a few days ago.  I didn’t let it hang around very long, I pushed it right back.  I can’t possibly make a move to Bombay at this time.  It has taken me two years and I’m finally familiar with Delhi.  I have a sense of the good and bad parts of town.  I know the places to hang out.  I can’t go back to square one again!  Or can I?  Should I think about this?

Indian National Psyche and My Cigar Friend

One of the interesting topics of discussion between my cigar friend and I has to do with an Indian national psyche.  One of the things that bugs me is constant copying and tit-for-tat.  I tell my cigar friend that there is a lot of this happening everywhere around me and I struggle to deal with it.  She argues that it does not happen.  How can it be happening if it is occuring everywhere?  Everyone can’t be wrong, she said.  My response: yes, it does happen everywhere and everyone can be wrong!

This discussion stems from the fact that my cigar friend is a copy cat and a tit-for-tat rat.  Haha, okay, she’s not a rat but I wanted that line to rhyme.  Now watch, she’s gonna read this and somehow a reference to a cat and a rat will occur sometime soon.  Or, she may try to hold back.  Eventually, she’ll think I’ve forgotten about it and then she’ll say something.  Why?  Because she has to say something and she’ll do it quietly, feeling good that she’s said something.  Hmm, sounds like passive agressiveness.

Is there really a national psyche that I seem to be butting heads with?  Yes, yes, and yes!  Up to now, the people I am dealing with on this are really my own immediate family and my cigar friend.  My cousins also do it.  I run into people once in a while, like my banker, who are also guilty.  It doesn’t bother me much with the banker.  I just brush it off.  I have no relationship with her outside of being my banker for it to matter.  I don’t tell my cousins too much about it, but I do mention it, because telling them something is usually pointless (for reasons I can discuss some other time).  However, when my family does it, it bugs me and I tell them.  When my cigar friend does it, it’s the same situation.

I was researching for work and came across an article with Infosys’ Narayana Murthy.  Let me quote:

The Global Education Centre addresses a key aspect of the national psyche.  “We have realized that our challenge is to take the reactive mindset of Indian youngsters and change them into proactive problem solving ones.  By and large, because of our culture, family background, etc. we are reactive.  To change that, we have to understand problem solving as a science and an art.  We have to understand algorithmic thinking,” he says.

Ahah!  National psyche!  Reactive!  This is the same kind of thing with the issues my cigar friend and I talk about.  She tells me that I’m in India, so I should follow Indian thinking.  Well, that’s true.  But only to some extent.  And only if I want to regress!  What I do need to do is find a better way to deal with it!

Says Narayana Murthy in the article:

We have to understand interacting with people from other cultures, the ability to get into a new unstructured situation and use our generic learning to ask questions in a systematic way.

Ahah, this is so true!  Why are Indians across India, including such distinguished business leaders as Murthy, talking about adopting new ways of thinking and learning and my cigar friend is telling me to regress?  I hope she reads this, gets pissed off, then smiles, and then decides to tell me she’s reading my blog!

Ted Kennedy – Family, Life, and Lessons – Part 4

The article in my last post was the introduction to the Newsweek series.  You can get to all the sub-articles through that.  Here’s my next citation.

What Teddy Can Teach Us, Evan Thomas, Newsweek, August 29, 2009 from the magazine issue dated September 7, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/214247

• He possessed two qualities rarely found in our elected representatives: he did not hog the limelight and, and he was never petty.
• Part of just showing up for Kennedy was presiding as paterfamilias at endless family graduations, weddings, and funerals.
• Kennedy devoured briefing books – huge binders stuffed with mind numbing research – the way most people read novels, recalls Jim Manley, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
• Kennedy could posture and yell on the Senate floor, but he managed to make his foes into friends.
• Kennedy could be harsh in debate, but he was careful to make amends.  He never let himself get too offended by others.  After Sen. Strom Thurmond would rail against him at labor-committee hearings, recalls Kennedy’s longtime aide Melody Miller, “he would amble over to Thurmond and throw his arm over his shoulders and laughingly say, ‘Now, Strom, don’t get too upset. Come on over to Judiciary and I’ll give you some judges!’ “
• Kennedy was at this best – at his most genuine – when other people were in trouble and feeling abandoned.
• Kennedy thought a lot about things, he recalled, and began reading all the books he hadn’t read in college, his family joked.  Maybe it was his Catholic faith, deepened by tragedy and redemption.

Hogging the limelight has a big affect on getting things done.  Those two things can be directly opposite most of the time.  If you want to get results, you cannot worry about the limelight.  You just have to know you’re doing what you’re doing to achieve your goal.  If you’re around decent people, you’ll get the limelight you deserve.  Heck, if you stick around long enough, you’ll get it even with not-so-decent people around you.

It’s not as simple as that, of course.  I used to believe that you shouldn’t worry about credit, just do your job and that’s what matters.  I didn’t even know you should look for credit.  For years, I was turned-off by what I saw as the American capitalist notion of self-promotion and the Hindu value of humility.  I was torn between the two with a definite skew towards humility.  I thought self-promotion was evil.  Really, I did.  It’s probably because I was humble to a fault.  I still am in many regards and don’t toot my own horn. 

I’ve learned over the years, though, that telling people of what you’ve done isn’t necessarily bad.  In fact, in many ways, it’s very important to do that, both in your professional and personal life.  People get to know you, your character, how you think, and your priorities by the things you tell them.  If those things happen to give you credit, then that is what they do.  My thinking on the evilness of self-promotion has turned around to the point it doesn’t turn me off when I see it.  You cannot tell everyone but you do need to tell the people that matter – your spouse, your family, your boss.  Who you deem important to know is important.

I consider being petty just plain-ol bad.  There is little reason to be small-minded about things.  I know people who fall into that category.  If they’re people I hardly meet, it doesn’t really bother me.  I’ve also been in situations where it’s been with people I interact with regularly.  Now, that’s when it gets annoying.  That’s when you remember that breathing deeply helps keep you calm!

One of the things Ted Kennedy apparently did really well was reading, i.e., preparation.  Many of his colleagues and family members mentioned that during his funeral.  I am always reading news online or trade magazines.  I also enjoy reading the latest in management books.  There’s so much to know and understand and it doesn’t happen overnight.  You need to keep up with this stuff continuously.  Still I think I can improve on this.  I need to read more targeted trade literature.

One of the things I found the funniest was when people said Ted Kennedy would yell and scream and vigorously debate on the Senate floor and then turn around and put his arm around you and ask something like “How did I do?”.  I think this is so critical.  I was like this and still am with many people but I do need to do more of it.  Because of a tough situation as a twenty-something adult, I was repeatedly in situations where cutting things off was the best thing to do.  In hindsight, I have realized that cutting things off became too much a part of me.  I need to re-acquire Ted’s ability.

Since a difficult relationship with one of my paternal aunts, I have thought about the things that makes people tick.  It is interesting to me.  People are interesting to me.  Why do they behave the way they do?  Why do they think the way they do?  I ask a lot of probing questions because I like to get down to the root of things.  I’m very curious about people, behaviors, and attitudes.

When you go through a tough period, something so severe that it causes post-traumatic stress disorder (see the “Diagnosis” section) or whatever is the appropriate term, there is a compassion switch that gets turned on in you.  You relate to those who suffer.  It can create a deep desire to bond with people and to help people.  Sometimes, that is not so good but that is what happens with severe traumatic situations.  Your brain gets rewired.  The death of Ted’s brothers had the affect of rewiring his brain!

Ted Kennedy – Family, Life, and Lessons – Part 3

Turns out that Newsweek has a whole series on Ted Kennedy.  A few of the other sites I’ve visited – Time and CNN, for example – have sporadic coverage.  Here’s a third article.

Understanding Teddy Kennedy, Jon Meacham, Newsweek, August 29, 2009 from the magazine issue dated September 7, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/214246

• To cast him in a sentimental warm light (the left) or to demonize him (the right) are equally inadequate to capturing his character…
• …when you think about it, the challenges he faced and the sins he committed were less about life on an American Mount Olympus and more in line with what ordinary mortals face.
• He was a man, not a monument, and the fact that he managed to accomplish monumental things is all the more inspiring given his all too human flaws.
• Ted actually vindicated a more mundane truism: that half (or maybe as much as 90 percent) of success in life is just showing up.
• Ted Kennedy essentially embodied liberal orthodoxy, but he was not a purist.  He believed in getting things done and never let he perfect be the enemy of the good.

People are complicated even when they want things in black or white.  Life is also complicated and full of gray areas.  Many people struggle in life just because they don’t understand that fact.  Knowing the reason someone does something cannot be easily understood, especially in India, where people don’t talk directly.  It’s not the case in the States where people tend to be more transparent.  I am generalizing, of course.  You’ll find all kinds of people and situations everywhere.  Still, cultural differences are pronounced between the East and the West.

Ted Kennedy’s life was a mix of celebrity, great successes, and tragic failures.  His life was like most people’s, though.  The key difference is that Ted was a public figure from a high profile family.  His problems were public and were larger-than-life because of it.  Other than that, his issues were not unique to him.

Ted did two things very well, apparently.  He was highly persistent.  He knew his chance would come so he kept at it.  He was also the ideal Boy Scout – always prepared.  These two behaviors kept him in the ball game.  More than anything, he kept showing up, day after day.  Showing up over and over again is absolutely key.  The tide does eventually change.

Ted also had a philosophy that it’s important not to pass up a good opportunity waiting for the perfect one.  Who is to say the next opportunity will be the better or worse than the current one?  If it’s good enough, go for it.  The question, of course, is what is good enough?  That can be tough to decide on.  But you have to know that is how it works – that you have to accept a good pitch and swing.