Window

The air conditioner in the bus is not working. It is a long ride back home and it would be tough in the barmy weather. Good that there are few people around. The conductor has tried - first to convince that the air conditioner is working but just the air is not cool enough, and then by switching on small fans above certain seats. Eventually he opens the windows, which are jammed due to disuse.

Why have windows vanished from our lives? They are now only found in computers, proverbs and quaint restaurants. What are windows? Why are they not doors? For one thing, they are more romantic, have more character. Windows are yearning, and temptation. They can be that big gulf between what I have and not, what I am and not. In an apartment where I once lived, there was a large french window beside which I spend many a lazy afternoons and nights overlooking the sea. My son likes to sit on the edge of a much smaller window at home, to make sense of the world outside. Train rides are all about windows. In Shimla, my everlasting memory is that of sitting on the first floor of a cafe overlooking the Mall road. The cafe is tiny with breadth of few feets. But there is a large window which gives you a feeling of almost sitting on the Mall road itself, shaking hands with passers-by. The world moves but the time stands still sitting at that window. Windows have that thing - they warp the sense of motion and of your place in the scheme. Where are windows gone?

Back to the bus, the conductor has opened the windows - I do not like it much because it means noise and pollution. Thankfully, today it made things more tolerable. I am sitting there, reading my book, as the dusk descends. At one long intersection, the bus halts so close to the pavement that some branches and leaves peak inside the bus from my open window. The gesture is so sudden yet invigorating that I am instantly elated. It is like a good friend showing up unexpectedly for a chat. I feel ‘aha, what break from monotony’, and welcome the tree wholeheartedly. I stroke the leaves, pluck a small shoot and press it between the pages of the book I am reading. I know that the bus would take time to move and I want to savour the moment. The evening is looking more beautiful.

Suddenly, a monkey climbs up the tree and jumps inside the bus through the open window. It mauls me brutally before running down the aisle, and frightening everybody. Or so I imagine. I shudder and desperately want the bus to start moving now.

The leaves are still pressed in the book.      

Green

I like taking my two-year-and-some-months old to the nearby park (large parks are prominent amongst the diminishing luxuries in Delhi). He is too young to understand most things I want to explain to him. But I see some excitement around squirrels and birds. I want him to run with abandon, jump around, roll in grass and mud, get dirty, hurt himself - hopefully in good time. I try and instill in him a love and respect for the flora. Mostly he is trying to pluck leaves brutally, or mock-slap them. It disturbs me. But on last few occasions, I have been able to convince him to gently stroke the tree trunk, to feel the roughness of the surface. I keep asking him to thank the trees and plants.

I have had nothing to do with flora in my life so far - I come from a boring, mundane job, and have lived all my life in a flat which has limited space to even pretend to garden. But I have a deep-seated love for the greens, which surfaces occasionally and in various forms. My usual high-strung state means that I find it soothing to even look at trees. I have recently shifted my exercise routine from a gym to a park. One condition that I have imposed is not to use any floor mat. I like to feel the grass below, roll in it and get dirty. It pricks at times, grass/mud sticks to wet clothes, and there is frequent biting by ants, but these are small prices. I enjoy when the shower washes away the park (mud and grass) which I bring home. Be it summer or winters, seeing people (groups of teenagers, labourers, idlers, beggars, kids, aunties) in a park makes me smile. I always get a sense of stillness, calmness, idleness on seeing them - a small cocoon in the madness, cacophony and brutality of the city - bustling just a few meters away.

Once, I complimented a client on lush, well maintained plants in his cabin. He was genuinely elated and mentioned that it has to do with the care shown to them. He talks to them, cares for them tenderly. He has a small garden at home. Lovely! It took me back to my heartbreak with plants at my home - they never survive. In one of my periodic bursts of heightened love for greens, and of trying-stuff, around two years back, I ordered home plants. I tried many kinds but nothing worked. Most plants gradually died. Earlier I used to care for them, watering them with caution, turning the soil, plucking wilted leaves. Gradually, as they continued to flounder I lost interest. My mom continued to soldier on. Springing of every new leaf brought hope, and its flagging brought back doubts. I took back the bamboo (my first desk plant) home for better care. But it too wilted. The fate of most of the plants at home made me pessimistic, and believer in mystic energy. I feel some negative energy in the house, or wave of apathy which makes them wilt. It worries me.      

I keep a few plants at my office desk which have done reasonably. While they have not grown rapidly as I had thought, they have not wilted. The money plant seems to have finally found its growth spurt. I am envious of this vine at desks of my colleagues - expanding robustly, infiltrating other people’s workspace like undercover agents. But now I am tracking the daily progress of mine one with eagerness, almost egging it to grow fast, faster. I keep checking the stem for smidgens of new shoots - a new leaf fills my heart with joy (small joys in the daily office life). I once held a fresh leaf between my thumb and index finger and enjoyed the wax-like smoothness.

But I am disgruntled with the attitude of my cooperative apartment towards plants and greenery. While we still have a few well-maintained gardens, but over the years, large green tracts have fallen prey to parking slots, and building extensions - all signs of the greed and misplaced priorities. We once had an open balcony with provision for more plants. It is now a closed room, which fetches more real estate value. My feeling of guilt and powerlessness over this never abates. Nobody ever took a stand higher than that of materialistic gains - frequent nowadays.  

Amidst this deeply cynical state, sights of deep foliage give me hope. As one wanders the cities, one finds sameness - stretches of concrete, glass, tar, gleaming progress, apathy, urgency, rush. Amidst these strands of humanity, trees stand defiant, bastions of sanity, like a final frontier. In residential societies, in office complexes, seraphic patches of green are succour for tired eyes, minds, even souls. But to me they also bring a sense of foreboding, of fear, of pain. How long will they survive? Greed expands like lava - it will burn most in the way.

And we will reach the stage projected in the movie Wall-E (the movie projects a grim post apocalyptic world). In the movie - a tiny sapling stands for everything good - for hope amidst misery, for rebirth, for beauty, for reversion to humanity. This brings me to how plants have elevated scenes in movies, because they symbolise so much, most of all hope and growth.

First up is the movie Lootera, released in 2013. The movie is based on O’Henry’s short story - The Last Leaf. As the winter sets in the hills and gradually subsumes the leaves of the tree visible from her window, the ailing heroine loses hope for her own health. She firmly believes that she will live as long as there is the last leaf on the tree. On surface, this pegging of something as strong as human life on something as uncertain and fragile as a leaf may sound illogical or sign of a failing mind. But it also shows how mind works, how hope thinks, and how we form strong relation with the nature - trees and plants. If there is some logic to vicariousness, then this is most logical. Trees stand for strength, for longevity, a strong attestation for life itself.  

A recent movie had similar symbolism with a plant standing for life and continuity - ‘October’. This melancholic movie is about a young, comatose girl who has suffered brain damage due to an unfortunate incident. Her name is ‘Shiuli’, meaning night jasmine, her favourite flower. Symbolism of the fact that night jasmine has a short, beautiful life, and the fact that Shiuli eventually dies is apparent. But in the end, the hero walks away with a night jasmine plant gifted to him by Shiuli’s mother, highlighting the strong association between man and plant, and a continuity.    

Two bollywood movies of yesteryears while do not have such strong linkage with the trees but have memorable shots which show a turn of events, from pain to clarity and hope - with trees being the central piece. In Amar Prem, a kid grows up in a seedy neighbourhood with brothels around. The protagonist is a prostitute who develops a strong maternal bond with the kid, who in turn likes her more than her foster mother. He once plants a sapling in her courtyard. Twists of time take the boy away from the neighbourhood. Years later, the boy, now a grown man, well settled in life, visits the neighbourhood with a vague, lingering interest in knowing about ‘her’. (He in fact uses just the pronoun ‘woh’ meaning ‘she’ for the protagonist). As soon as he gets off the rickshaw, his eyes fall on the spot where he had planted the sapling, and he sees a fully grown, lush tree. The background music hits a crescendo - the maternal lullaby ‘she’ used to sing to him. Immediately tears well up in his eyes, and the memories flood. The tree symbolises his own growth, the distance he has covered, yet a tugging with the past, a root which you cannot budge. To him the tree stands for care, for motherly love, for a bond - tenuous yet strong. This scene gives goosebumps, just like another one from the movie Anupama.

The protagonist named Anupama is an extremely shy, sensitive girl whose personality has been suppressed by a dominating father, who holds her responsible for the death of her mother who died while delivering her. Anupama comes in contact with a free-minded author/poet, who gets so enamored by her simplicity, and her dilemmas that he writes a novel based on her life. The novel is an appeal to her to break free from her mental barriers, to give her confidence, to embrace her innate beauty, to take control of her fate. Anupama reads the novel through the night. The room is dark. On finishing, she keeps the book down gently, there is an amused look on her face, she walks to the window and sharply pulls the curtain. And the sunlight bursts into the room, streaming through the branches of a large tree. Anupama now has a confident, almost arrogant, look on her face as she soaks in the sunlight. The tree is large, and majestic, almost acknowledging Anupama’s arrogance, congratulating her on her new-found determination.

Trees can mean so much, like their countless leaves.    

Governance & Naivety

The dichotomy between the economic systems of Capitalism and Socialism has wide connotations and applications - like yin and yang, heart and head, selfish vs selfless, extravagance against austerity, Oriental vs Occidental. Like most things in life, there is no clear dichotomy also, it is a continuum. An individual can be somewhere in between and at different points at different times.

As an economic system, capitalism has proved to be way more successful, measured in terms of the period that it has sustained, or its domination as a global economic system. In fact socialism has largely become obscure, such that it is associated with antiquity and stagnation while capitalism is considered modern, and progressive. The world is yet to find another more accepted form of social and economic system.

Do I fully comprehend these systems? Hell no! But I do subscribe to capitalism. Possibly because I have grown up in it. Capitalism stands for free competition, for selfish pursuit, and in combination of the two. Meaning that when a good number of people who are rational and who are chasing self-interests, compete freely, it is good for the society at large. Freedom translates into non intervention by the State, and absence of controls. Selfish pursuits translates into profit motive. And a good enough number of participants is essential for competition, as it prevents sloth and complacency. Forces of capitalism ensure that the efforts and resources flow to their most optimum state or usage. Expanded further, a capitalist system allows for more correct determination of price of a thing - a product of its perceived worth, its demand, and its supply - in an uncontrolled environment. Profit pursuit would allow for resources to move seamlessly to prevent any arbitrage to remain for long.

    

Yet, I feel capitalism is the antithesis of a social structure, or the structure necessary for survival. Pursuit of profit can be relentless, selfish, brutal and ugly, while the survival of any society is built on cooperation, co-habitation. Unfettered can mean untamed, wild, rushed, frenzied, dangerous, even remorseless. The self-centered and competitive instincts of capitalism in an environment of limited resources (or zero sum) mean success at the expense of others. That for one to win somebody has to lose, for somebody to be in advantage somebody else has to be disadvantaged necessarily.

Thus arises the need to temper the capitalistic system, else it may be too powerful for its own good, it can self-destruct. Thus the need for regulators, for systemic controls. Yet capitalistic entities keep getting out of hand, they keep sneaking out of all controls. This leads to fraud, or malpractice. But regulations alone have limited success in controlling capitalism. One, because too much regulation starts to look like socialism and that is intolerable. Two, the regulators, those entrusted with the task to make and implement regulations, too are a product of capitalist systems and thus not comfortably detached.

Increasingly capitalistic instincts are being reined in by the concepts of ethics and corporate governance. Ethics means application of morality to the animalistic tendencies of humans. This means chaining capitalism to the premise of good vs bad behaviour, to be able to control it. It also means bringing a degree of self-regulation. So now we have regulations around corporate governance, and courses in ethics. But it was always going to be difficult to define and contain. And the lines between right, legal, and self-interest keep getting messed up.  

India’s track record in corporate governance is shoddy, and it is becoming increasingly apparent. For those willing to look beyond the over-voluble, self-congratulatory ‘India Shining’, and ‘next-superpower’ script, the last few years of reading of corporate India is a tale of blatant and not-so-blatant frauds, misgovernance, regulatory lethargy, and judicial blankness. Over the years, I have been perceptive to ethical standards in the Indian society. In my experience, we are not the most ethical, especially when no one is there to police. This manifests in small forms - readiness to jump a queue, skip a red light, littering, disrespect for public property, and an overall casual, even subversionary, attitude towards rules and laws. Part of this stems from a very individualistic view that we take. I read an article some time back on this topic, which reaffirmed my view:

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/an-unethical-place-business-corruption-pri9vate-sector-informal-transparency-5057835/

This is not to say that India is all murky and the West is all shiny. But the number of instances in the past few years confirm to me my cynical view. The Indian banking system is now visibly in a mess, something which people-in-the-know have known for long. It emerged only when it became too difficult to manage. And behind this mess is a trail of companies which have got busted. While the subject is not straightforward and requires debate, analysis and deeper understanding, some factors are apparent. Part of the problem is extraneous related to the economic factors and industry-specific malaise. But a big part, and this is not even the elephant in the room any more, is fraud. Perpetrated by the businessmen who come in all hues - slick and suave, highly educated, or pan-chewing lalas. And around these there is a web of consultants, fixers, agents, valuers, auditors, CAs, and bankers.

Large projects or expansion plans are essential to the growth of economy as these are drivers of many tangible good things. But these are also the cesspool from which most frauds emerge, because they allow for large sums to be discussed and they allow for higher uncertainties, which is the best refuge of scoundrels. So it is common to overstate project cost, invest little of own money and a lot of bank’s money and then pronounce the project stuck or even unviable. Meanwhile because the project cost is overstated, own money is comfortably withdrawn.

The next common form of deceit is funding for working capital - inventory and receivables. In inventory, it is usually items which are difficult-to-measure accurately like rice bags (lakhs of them). And debtors are usually cross border ones - in geographies with easy-to-manage laws and paperwork. Another common form of malfeasance is to undertake public issue of company’s shares to raise money from investors (thousands/lakhs of them) by showing a blatantly false company position. Behind all these duplicities is a complex web of group companies, trusts, partnerships, offshore entities, to make it difficult to unearth the reality (whatever that is), give safe passage to the promoters and park money for them, far away from any redemption or claim.   

Last five years of corporate news in India are littered with thousands of examples of the above types. And miles of news reams have been dedicated to commentary. Companies of all sizes and relevance have come under the microscope. And interestingly many have vanished without a trace. So many listed companies have effectively ceased to exist, evaporating thousands of crores of market capitalisation. The biggest sufferers in this are - investors, for many of whom the money invested was a big part of their savings, and lenders (banks not bankers, they usually have a good time). And retail equity investors may not get any closure, because the truth of what went wrong never emerges, no learning. What the just get is reiteration of caveat emptor. But that is supposed to mean risks beyond reasonable control of anyone, not outright crime perpetrated by the promoters and assisted by all and sundry.

The perplexity of all of it is trumped only by its comedy. I find it difficult to fathom how a company just ceases to exist - employees leave I understand, but what happens to the promoter(s), the offices, the legal entity. It is like one day, the shop just shuts and the promoters disappear - that too in today’s times of surveillance, information, and technology. While I would like to believe that legal redressals are being undertaken by the powers that be, I am not holding any hope. And most people in India have grown up on such regular diet of power abuse that they write it off as just another bad luck, shake their heads and walk away. This is what most appreciate as the ability to laugh at adversities, the Indian flexibility.   

The track record of Indian judiciary punishing, for good, the rich and powerful is abysmal, something which is amply demonstrated in corporate India. Most promoters know the security blankets that they enjoy - they know that while they will lose some zeros of their net-worth, they will be able to stash away enough for many generations to live lavishly. Leave aside any thought of a firm punishment. India can serve its patented cocktail of greed, power, and jugaad.

I wonder at the psychology. Discussing with a businessman uncle of mine, we identified a few scenarios. Assuming a promoter starts with good, honourable intention of making some money, bending only as much rules as most businessman in India have to but with no venal plans. Let us assume the business faces deep distress, not of promoter’s doing. Now the promoter is faced with a dilemma - his morality is getting tested. One of three paths emerge here:

1. In the most righteous one, the businessman gives highest priority to maintaining a clean name. He will sell the family jewels to ensure that the lenders are paid off. Technically, as per terms of finance, the promoter is not obligated to do this. My uncle says that such businessmen used to exist back in time, but not anymore.
2. In the second path, the promoter would try and make an honourable settlement with his creditors, asking lenders to suffer a haircut, possibly keeping some money on the side for himself. While this is most reasonable approach because it is a balance between promoter’s selfish interests and lenders’ recovery. In today’s times, even such promoters are a rarity.
3. The third path is most commonly taken. Here the promoter stashes away whatever he can. He knows when things go kaput much before the outside world does, and he uses this knowledge to bleed the enterprise dry. He then offers whatever is left to the creditors raising his hands in solemn helplessness.

There are no absolutes, nobody can be easily compartmentalised to a particular category. Mostly, a promoter would go through a transition. He may start with best intentions but gradually descend - or may just snap - to poorer choices, goaded by greed, and a malleable institutional framework.

Of course, in all these cases, governance concerns arise if in the first place the company got into trouble because of promoter misconduct - not poor decision making, but cheating, or embezzlement. And there is the extreme case of promoters who start an enterprise with the sole intent of defrauding, or at least a major stashaway. They are counselled by experts like CAs, or consultants on loopholes in laws, or procedures which can be exploited with limited risks. They can be only commended for their audacity. The best part in India is that the last two categories rarely face any natural justice. It is not unusual to find such promoters resurface a few years after their first adventure, without having paid off for it, this time with a new enterprise. The fact that India allows this time and again and in today’s times when there is scope for higher transparency, is the best testimony to our flexibility.

All instances of promoter misconduct may not get caught, more so in India. This acts as a positive reinforcement. More businessmen are emboldened when they see their peers amassing great wealth by duping the system. If anything, their wealth makes them more immune to the law, strengthening them further. Time is another panacea. Over time, past evils are forgotten, cleansed, or buried under mint-fresh wisdom and righteousness. Wealth often makes the bedrock of the moral high-ground.  

On the question of finance, I once had an interesting debate with a friend. In case a company faces a situation where it is not able to repay its creditors, is the promoter required to support by bringing in his own funds? Should the creditors demand that promoters infuse capital from his other successful businesses (if any), or even the cash stowed in his safe box at home (assuming that is legitimately accumulated)? Fundamentally, the promoter is not bound to. Creditors to the company have taken a known risk by lending to the business. If the business has gone south, too bad. While equity owner should be paid last and carries the highest risk, that is applicable only to the extent of his funds already invested in the company. He cannot be required to bring more funds to pay off the creditors, unless there is some contractual obligation to that effect.

When a promoter has generated sizeable net worth, or leads a flashy lifestyle, it comes under unreasonable questioning when his company defaults. All his actions get challenged in hindsight and he is unjustly maligned for. say. owning expensive cars, for taking luxurious holidays etc. It is expected that since he has so much personal wealth, he should support his defaulting company. While financially speaking, he does not have to; yet there is an ethical conundrum here. I am not saying that he should be pestered for his lifestyle choices - of past or present. That is ridiculous and an overreaction. Yet, it leaves a bad taste to see a promoter maintaining a luxurious lifestyle when employees of his company are unpaid for months, living in abjectness. Of course, the central assumption here is that the promoter has not done anything wrong and the business failed for other reasons - bad decisions may be but not bad intentions.

One can argue why to criticise India so much, no part of the world is devoid of similar examples. Agree, just that India considers itself to be the custodian of morality and with a culture steeped in scruples. More relevantly, it considers itself a fast-becoming developed country, whereas its corporate governance record is nowhere near one. The developed countries too have their share of misgovernance, but the key difference is that they have redressals which are swift and severe. And nobody is considered too big when it comes to that. Amongst numerous examples is the case of Bernard Madoff. He had been a non-executive chairman of the Nasdaq, and owner of a major financial firm - as big as they get. Yet, when a securities fraud of more than $50 billion came to light in December 2008, by June 2009 he was sentenced to 150 years imprisonment. A perfect example of being swift, severe and impartial to reputation.

Of course there would be many frauds which have not come to light, but for those which do, a bright bonfire is lit for all to take notice. Such instances set examples, they are the best form of deterrents. In India, we have very few instances of strong judgements against high-profile miscreants. This gives confidence to such people that they can largely get away with anything - if caught, then they would have to spend on lawyers, agents, fixers; lose some reputation; may have to flee the country, but nothing beyond. In India, deterrents come by way of more regulations. And most regulations are incremental, layer upon layer, such that we lose sight of logic, simplicity, and natural justice.

The Indian Express article that I listed above raises some interesting questions. Is corruption universal? Are people fundamentally immoral, and self-seeking. Thus ethics are just a function of the strength of deterrent systems - weaker systems, or lack of policing will see collapse of governance everywhere. In India, most people give this argument, because it allows for blaming the government and systems. But I believe that morality is an absolute, there is an innateness to it irrespective of the external factors - it has to be or else it loses meaning. As the article correctly says: “No amount of compliance and governance can substitute for sound moral fibre.” Does that mean that the developed world has higher morality? I don’t know.

Has there been a deterioration in integrity in India? The article says “That India’s politicians and government officials are venal is hardly breaking news... But the dark secret at the heart of Indian society is that the decline of public morality is now mirrored by a shameful fall in ethics in the private sector. The cancer of corruption has spread well beyond the corridors of power to our educated and affluent elites — professionals, salaried employees and businessmen” and also “...even as the economy has been liberalised to a great extent since 1991, corruption has only grown worse and today infects not just government but Indian businesses and corporate life”. Partly, there is a problem with the argument - is one set of citizens are more unethical than the others - that government officials were always corrupt but private sector, businessmen and professionals have only become so now. The fact is that the private sector was non-existent earlier - businessmen were there but not powerful enough. It is more relevant to compare the level of ethics in those with power. One pertinent consideration is whether ethics have gone down amongst the educated? Are educated supposed to have better moral compass - I would like to say yes but I am not sure. Greed/ethics/integrity may not have anything to do with education. Instead the quality of education was different - earlier because of the lingering British effect, education was more rounded, with greater world view, more holistic, which, if anything, could give better moral fiber. In that aspect, one can argue, partially that the ethics have deteriorated over the years.

It can be nauseating if you happen to be in an industry surrounded by examples of misgovernance. Especially is you also happen to have some scruples. Seeing absolute immorality or moral compromises can suffocate. In my opinion it leads to either of two situations - either one becomes wiser to this and learns to play systems, discounting morality and all that gyaan; or one becomes extremely cynical, cynicism which unhealthily sneaks into all spheres of life. Either ways one cannot come out good from this.  

Peacock

A Hindi saying goes “jungle main mor nacha, kisne dekha” which literally translates to “who sees the peacock dance in the jungle?”. Allegorically it means that a thing of beauty, or rather anything worthwhile requires a witness. On a broader level, is the worth of anything dependent on attestation? Can something not stand on its merit without being recognised.

I am not sure of the answer.

Everything around me tells me that nothing has any meaning without an audience. It is almost to say that a thing cannot exist in isolation. There is some merit in seeking validation to an achievement. It is not only about inviting appreciation, but also feedback or criticism. This feedback may give a better perspective rather than basking in self-glory. Also, man’s sociability cannot be wished away in the cloak of individuality. Most of our thoughts, emotions, habits, actions, behaviour are a product of being part of a social group. In isolation, a man is both God, and demon. Also appreciation is the most basic of human needs. Man has agreed to a social construct, and this agreement entails a cost. In return man seeks support, and esteem.

But, things seem to be getting out of hand. The hunger for validation has been expanding rapidly. One ready tool to measure this validation is the social media, or the ‘Like’, ‘Share’, ‘Follow’, options. These are today’s currencies, without which most things seem worthless. An achievement does not stand without these. Validation, peer appreciation is instantly sought and is the only form of closure to most things. I heard this statement for a fellow runner in last year’s half marathon “This is not a race for coming first or for any rank, this is more a race with oneself”. Excellently put I say. But I am almost sure that that guy would have felt incomplete even after completing the race, till he had shared message of his success on social media. I hate it when people engage in an activity only to get a picture taken at the end of it and feel absolutely distraught when that evidence is somehow lost.

While one can argue about the degree or the extent of degradation today, I revert to the basic conundrum: is it sufficient to derive  happiness or satisfaction from self-validation, of doing something just for self? Idealistically I would like that to be the case. When a person feels complete in doing, caring not for acclaim. I know it can sound hollow, impractical, even narcissistic. Yet I feel there is an innate beauty in doing something without the expectation of acknowledgement. It can be the purest intention of doing something.  

The quote at the beginning of this piece was targeted at me with regard to the blog, with the insistence that I advertise my blog more. I maintain that I write for myself, to give expressions to the thoughts which keep whirling in my mind. Thus there is a therapeutic reason for writing. One may ask - so why put it on a blog? That is to give it a finality, to impose a deadline on oneself. Without it, the writing may become endless. While the thoughts are still incomplete in many cases, by blogging I hope to assign some linearity to the inherent circularity of my thoughts. Still the argument remains that what is the value of my blog if nobody reads it, a lone trumpet. What all I may argue, even I am not sure! Many a times, I do yearn for feedback, even appreciation for what I have written.

Is there a shift in the work - reward - satisfaction equation in today’s generation. People are too result-oriented, and tangibility-seeking. My first few years in my current organisation were the best for me, because they perfectly embodied the ethos of ‘keeping the head down and working’. The idea behind keeping the head down is to not know if and who is observing. It is about doing something for the joy of doing it. Henry Ford said: “quality means doing it right when no one is looking”. I know he meant it largely from the perspective of instilling discipline on the factory shop floor. But it can be extended to mean that excellence does not necessarily mean an audience. Excellence or for that matter any task can be for oneself. This is the message that is getting lost in today’s times.

Abhinav Bindra, India’s only individual Olympic gold medalist was coached by a German couple - Heinz Reinkemeier and Gaby Buhlmann. There is an iconic image just after Bindra fired his gold-winning shot at 2008 Beijing Olympics - a profile pose where he is looking triumphantly at a fuzzy-haired woman who is in turn giving him a thumbs-up. She is Gaby. Since then, Heinz and Gaby have not got the adulation they deserved for being instrumental in training Bindra. An Indian Express article beautifully captures their little-acknowledged contribution to Indian sports. Amazingly, the couple could not care less. Heinz is quoted a saying: “Award? I’ll accept only if it is given by a royal.” and “There are so many medallists from here (his academy), we will forever be attending award functions if that begins to happen”. Talk about being comfortable doing your thing without a care.

History gives us plenty of examples where people did not get the due for their contributions to the mankind. Of course these are the examples which have managed to sneak through the cracks of time, the actual unknowns are not known. Alfred Russel Wallace is a well known naturalist. But very few people know that he independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection and his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of the writings of Charles Darwin, the man who is widely credited and seen as the father of evolution theory. Giving more evidence would only contradict my point - something can have worth even in anonymity.

I would like to quote from the animation movie Ratatouille. The comment comes from a stern, arrogant, and highly influential food critic (named Ego), the kind who has power to make or destroy reputations. He is about to review the restaurant where the central character is the chef. Situation is dire and the future of the restaurant depends on Ego’s review of the food that he is being served. His review the next day is one of my favourite movie dialogues: “In many ways the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgement. … But, the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so“. The power of an act, just the act, irrespective of what precedes it or succeeds it.  

Who knows if a peacock’s dance, like a butterfly’s flutter, may cause a tornado somewhere. No worries, even if it does not!

Tortoise

I like speed. Within some reasonable parameters, I consider it a virtue. This is not specifically talking about driving a vehicle, but about generally being fast - in thought and in action. There is inherent relativity in the concept of speed, between individuals as well as between cultures. Different cultures may ascribe different values to ‘fast’. A mail forward that I had read long back talked about how decision making tends to be slow in Scandinavian  companies. That it is usual to take a year to decide on a particular aspect, not because of lethargy but because of the process and deliberations involved. Despite these examples, I think speed is a revered trait across civilisations. Speed is the essence of competitive spirit, which is the cornerstone of human society. I cannot think of any sport which awards the slowest.

In the environment I have grown in, speed is unequivocally a virtue. It is ingrained in the psyche to be fast, as fast as possible, to relentlessly pursue speed. It is hard to think of any situation which would require one to be slow, possibly only in speech. But I am referring to specific community or family biases. Thus I have grown up ingrained with continued focus on speed. This I have adopted in almost all aspects. And it has become an endless endeavour - to be faster.

In some aspects, I am proud of my speed - my walking speed, my eating speed, speed in softwares like Excel. I have found few people who could match my walking speed. Often when walking with somebody, I tend to get ahead and then check over my shoulder to make sure the person is not too far behind. I find it rude but have not been able to help it. I am sure it is demeaning to anybody, but I presume that at least my family members understand. Similarly I tend to eat quite fast, the matter being topic of much discussion on office lunch table. And I enjoy floating my fingers over the keyboard. In all these instances, one corollary is that I easily get disgusted with people with relatively slower speed - I find it such a waste of time when people walk slowly, or take long to finish their meals, when my subordinates take so much more to finish an assignment when I could have done it in half the time. Or when people of the vintage which has acquired computer skills much later in life, type in hunt and peck style, or press each command with mouse instead of using keyboard shortcuts (press Copy - minimise window - maximise another window - press Paste instead of Ctrl+c - alt+tab - Ctrl+v). I tend to remain edgy in all these instances. I feel like I am a ticking time bomb.  

But there is one area where speed is a concern - in conversation. This manifests in two ways - trying to preempt the other person’s thoughts, and in speaking rapidly. When in discussion with somebody I try to foresee another person’s argument before he has made it and start giving my arguments even before he has finished. So I get restless when somebody is make laboured points. Most often I end up interjecting, with my mind saying “yeah, yeah I know what you want to say”. And then I speak fast, again with a ticking timer in my mind, under the impression that the window of the other person’s attention is fast closing (as is the case with me) and I have to finish quickly.

Speaking too fast has been an innate trait. But it has been further entrenched due to all the Group Discussion coaching I took for my MBA admission. These GDs were proper gabfest where the only agenda of each participant is to outdo others in terms of the air time taken, irrespective of the content. There is an urgent need to be heard and people tend to go over the top. So people like me who have feeble voice and non-aggressive, non-smart temperament had to find some space. This meant almost interjecting others, waiting for a lull and pouncing on it. There has been a gradual conditioning and I have developed Pavlovian responses. A lull in conversation makes me uncomfortable. If timed, I am sure I would not be able to handle more than two seconds of silence. I start twitching. I am a terrible conversationalist.

This apart, I have liked my speed in most things. I have enjoyed doing things fast, it makes me feel confident and optimistic. But now I am in the process of absorbing a new realisation - that speed is not important, or rather, being slow is better. A lot of things are driving me to this thought. Foremost is my physical and mental struggle with anxiety. What I have experienced in the last few months are levels of anxiety which affect the health. And when you are going through an experience or a thought process, you tend to consciously or subconsciously gather information pertaining to it.

I read about Sudarshan Ramakrishnan, MD in Goldman Sachs, India, a top level position in the field of finance which is likely to entail stress. He admitted to having anxiety issues for more than 10 years. And the way he has described it is: “Anxiety is when your body reacts to outward stimuli with a fight and flight response. My body tends to go into protective mode under natural stimuli." Importantly what I am referring to here is a mental disorder and not a physical one. While physical repercussions may follow, but the root is the mental condition of ‘worrying too much.’ Reading this, I wondered how could a person with such a state rise to the level that he did. Then I read a Linkedin post about a person who is a trainer on managing stress and anxiety issues. This guy also had a panic attack 10 years back which led to a stint in hospital. The gist of his post was that a friend counselled him in hospital to the effect: “You need to slow down. Nothing is that important. Nothing is waiting for you. You possibly think too fast, or walk too fast which needs to stop. Walk slow, for once let the body drive the mind.” This idea resonated with me.

I am not saying that speed is the only cause of my anxiety. I know there are other factors but focus on speed is an important cause. Speed is inherently stressful on the mind and the body. Arianna Huffington is an author and businesswoman, with strong pedigree in the field of media, both print and television. She has campaigned for many causes, and her latest one is named Thrive. It is about “using scientifically proven methods to decrease stress and burnout and improve overall health, happiness and well-being” (10 years ago, Arianna herself collapsed due to exhaustion, and broke her cheek bone). While the initiative is directed towards corporates and I think has commercial interests, there were some suggestions which I read in an Arianna interview that made me take notice. Cutting through a lot of gyaan, relevant inputs were: “We don’t believe in work-life balance. The reason for that is it is not just work that stresses people, it is also what they are doing with their lives after work… People need to stop bragging about being busy. A lot of us are not conscious about our addiction to technology. We are living in what is known as the attention economy…. working to develop ‘Jomo’, the joy of missing out.”

The message here implicitly talks about slowing down, of not being over-charged. Most of us will link speed with ambition. Not being fast equates to being dull, lacking vigour. It is presumed that successful people (whatever success means) have to be fast. Because there is so much to be done, speed is essential. Multitasking is considered a must in the twenty-first century. This brings me to the lifestyles of some famous people that largely negates these arguments.

Charles Darwin: Charles Darwin published 19 books which includes On the Origin of Species. His everyday routine went like this: He would take a long walk and eat breakfast before 8 a.m. Then, he worked for 90 minutes in the study. Next, he'd go through his letters. Then he'd lie on the couch and have his wife Emma read out a novel. At 10:30 a.m., Darwin would head back to the study and work until noon. At this point, the remainder of his day would basically be work-free — more walks with his fox terrier, writing letters, reading the newspaper, more storytime with Emma, and eating meals.

G.H. Hardy: one of early 20th-century Britain’s leading mathematicians, he started his day with a reading of the cricket scores over breakfast, then focused on mathematics from 9 am to 1 pm. Tennis and long walks filled his afternoons. “Four hours creative work a day is about the limit for a mathematician,” Hardy said.

Charles Dickens: author of more than a dozen novels, he adopted a methodical and orderly schedule. From 9 am until 2 pm, he wrote in absolute quiet, with a break for lunch. After five hours, Dickens was done for the day.

Similar routines are attributed to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, W. Somerset Maugham, Anthony Trollope, Ingmar Bergman, Henri Poincare, Thomas Mann, and Mark Twain.

There are many lessons to draw from these examples. But the one most relevant to me is that a lot can be achieved in the given time. So why to hurry? One can overlook these examples by calling them geniuses but that would be missing the point. Agree, these are examples of a different era. That means this stress on speed has a lot to do with the present lifestyle. While this is a separate point of discussion, I believe it is possible to overcome the demands of the present times and maintain a languid routine and approach to life.

  

Now I mostly wonder, ‘why speed?’ What purpose is served by doing things quickly? There is so much time, so why hurry. I observe people who eat slowly as if pondering over each morsel, who speak with much deliberation. And I find them more clear headed. Speed seems to be unnatural, contrived, and mostly unnecessary. The natural state of nature and everything in it is more relaxed, almost languishing. Nature shows speed very infrequently - say in a predator chasing a kill, or in the fury of a river or waterfall, or in a volcano or a quake.

Hunt and peck is fine!

Cherry-Garrard

<this piece borrows heavily from Wikipedia>

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

- Ulysses by Lord Tennyson

I came across an astounding story. Apsley Cherry-Garrard is not the protagonist because of any special individual achievement, but mainly because he was the most unlikely and incapable member, and yet ended up being the only voice and chronicler. Terra Nova was the second expedition to Antarctica (1910-1913) by Robert F Scott.

This was the eponymous age of discovery, when the European colonial powers, acting as custodians of humanity, were in a race to explore new lands. It started with the Portuguese and Spanish, but later British emerged as the front runners. It was not all about colonialism, this age of discovery coincided with the age of science - advancements were being made in all scientific fields. Exploration of the two poles was the piece de resistance because it combined everything - finding new, uninhabited lands, thrill of a race to set the flag first, and endless possibilities of scientific discoveries. Race for both the North Pole and the South Pole were keenly contested, with the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) being the most avid participant. RGS was the leading organisation of this time with numerous achievements to its name. American Robert Peary finally claimed first foot on North Pole in April 1909.

This must have hastened the race to South Pole. Antarctica had seen explorations from 1840s but reaching the South Pole remained a stiff target given the harsh climate, unknown geography and under-developed technology.. Two Englishmen - Ernest Shackleton and Robert Scott were prime competitors undertaking three explorations between them from 1901 to 1913. But the first to reach the South Pole was the Norwegian Roald Amundson in 1911, who beat the second Scott expedition by a few days. And there hangs the tale.

Terra Nova

Cherry-Garrard had always been enamoured by the stories of his father's achievements in India and China where he had fought with merit for the British Defence Forces, and felt that he must live up to his father's example. But he had no business to be on an Antarctic expedition. He suffered from poor vision, and as per one account with many physical ailments and mental illnesses. In September 1907, Dr. Edward Adrian Wilson met with Robert Scott at Reginald Smith's home, to discuss another Antarctic expedition. Cherry-Garrard, who was Smith's young cousin, happened to visit at the time. Talk about being at the right place at the right time or vice versa. He volunteered to be a part of the expedition, which is quite extraordinary if you think. He would have been the youngest member, at 24, with no scientific training or past experience. He also decided to contribute £1,000 for the expedition. After first being turned down by Scott, he allowed his contribution to stand. This impressed Scott sufficiently, and along with persuasion from Wilson, he reversed his decision.

Reaching South Pole was the secondary objective of the Terra Nova expedition. It had various scientific and geographical research objectives, with Scott wishing to continue the work that he had begun when leading the Discovery Expedition in 1901–04. This was the reason that Scott had initially rejected Cherry-Garrard application as he had no scientific background. He eventually joined as an assistant zoologist, a claim which many members of the expedition party doubted.

Sixty-five men (including replacements) formed the shore and ship's parties of the Terra Nova Expedition. They were chosen from 8,000 applicants. Terra Nova sailed from Cardiff, Wales, on 15 June 1910. It left Port Chalmers, in New Zealand on 29 November 1910 and arrived off Ross Island on 4 January 1911. (Ross Island is named after Sir James Clark Ross, who in 1840s was amongst the earliest explorers of Antarctica). Once in Antarctica, many expeditions were taken up in small parties with specific exploration and research purposes. Importantly, winter in Antarctica sets in April for a period of six months. This is a period of complete darkness and extreme cold, forbidding any activity. Thus, explorations slows down and the team just stays put waiting for the summers to resume activities.

South Pole march

Scott left for South Pole on November 1, 1911. This was a distance of around 1300 kms from the base in Cape Evans to be carried out in parts and planning batches of men and resources (food, equipment, dogs, ponies). The journey involved traversing glaciers, crevasses and of course hostile weather. On 3 January 1912, at latitude 87°32' S, Scott made his decision on the composition of the polar party: Scott, Wilson, Oates, Bowers and Edgar Evans would go forward.

About 15 miles from their goal, the party spotted Amundsen's black flag and they knew that they had been forestalled. They reached the Pole on 17 January 1912 (two and a half months after starting). After confirming their position and planting their flag, Scott's party began the return journey.

The return journey proved perilous. They lost two men. Midway through the journey, Edgar Evans succumbed to injuries from falling and from frostbites. Oates’ hands and feet were rendered useless due to frostbite. He voluntarily leaves the tent and walks to his death. His last words were "I am just going outside and may be some time". (The key problem was that Scott’s party could not rendezvous with the teams which were supposed to meet them and get them back to base camp. At this point, things get murky with explanations on why the rendezvous failed. There are many accounts of what were Scott’s orders, and what transpired during the months of February and March 1912, that those orders could not be carried out. There are hints of poor planning, poor implementation and lack of cohesion among men.)

In a cruel joke of fate, Cherry-Garrard was at the One Ton Depot on 10 March 1912, 110 kms away from where Scott’s party was at the time. But he could not go further to search for them due to poor weather and considerations of available resources. When Scott’s group reached a point which was 11 miles (18 km) south of the One Ton Depot on 20 March 1912, they were halted by a fierce blizzard. Had they been able to cover that distance they might have been saved by resources left at One Ton Depot.

During the next nine days, as their supplies ran out, and with storms raging outside the tent, Scott and his companions wrote their farewell letters. Scott made a final entry on 29 March: "Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away... I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more. Last entry: For God's sake look after our people.” He also wrote his ‘Message to the Public’:

We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last ... Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale....

By end March, the group at Cape Evans headed by Edward Atkinson made an attempt to find and rescue Scott’s party but could not as the weather made further progress south impossible. Atkinson recorded, "In my own mind I was morally certain that the [polar] party had perished.” And then the winter of 1912 set in. In end October 1912, a party set out to search for Scott’s team and on 12 November 1912, they (Cherry-Garrard was part of the party) found the tent containing the frozen bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers. Atkinson read the relevant portions of Scott's diaries, and the nature of the disaster was revealed. The tent was collapsed over the bodies and a cairn of snow was erected. The party searched further south for Oates's body, but found only his sleeping bag. Before the final departure in January-February 1913, a large wooden cross was erected on the slopes of a hill, inscribed with the five names of the dead and a quotation from Tennyson's Ulysses.

Mid-script: When news of his death reached mainland, Scott became a national hero. But his reputation was dented some fifty to sixty years after his death, a time by which most members of the expedition had died. Researchers questioned his leadership and planning skills. He was thought to have bungled the expedition. Recent times have seen a reversal of these opinions and restoration of his status as a national icon, following a new wave of researchers. How fickle is posthumous glory!

I did not write this whole piece for what I have said so far, astounding and uplifting though it is. For Cherry-Garrard, the demise of Scott’s party was especially painful because he lost two men with whom he had undertaken another arduous journey. The best is yet to come:

The Winter Journey

In the winter of 1911, a team from Terra Nova took an extraordinary expedition into Antarctica. This expedition was conceived by Wilson who was the Chief of Scientific Staff. The scientific purpose was to secure eggs of Emperor penguin (a penguin species, amongst the largest) at an early embryo stage. This was to test the then proposed theory of recapitulation, which Wilson believed in. The theory hypothesised that the development of the embryo of an animal, from fertilization to hatching goes through stages resembling or representing successive stages in the evolution of the animal's remote ancestors. Birds were considered to have evolved from reptiles ( it is now an accepted scientific fact that birds evolved from dinosaurs). Wilson believed that Emperor penguins were the most primitive birds and that there embryos could show the evolution of birds from reptiles, primarily the formation of feathers. In his previous Antarctic expedition in 1901-1904, he had discovered the breeding cycle as well as the breeding ground of the penguins. Although they were able to bring home a number of deserted eggs and chicks, they were not able to procure early embryos.

Since the Emperor penguins live only in Antarctica, and they lay eggs in the dead of winter, this was the only time for the team which comprised Wilson, Bowers and Cherry-Garrard, to undertake the punishing 100 kilometres journey to Cape Crozier, the only breeding colony known at the time. The party set out on 27 June 1911. Travelling during the Antarctic winter had not been previously tried. As expected, it was a harrowing journey and a tale of immense bravery.

Interesting aside about Emperor penguins Emperor penguins have interesting reproduction routine. The female penguin lays one egg in May or early June. After laying, the mother's nutritional reserves are exhausted and she carefully transfers the egg to the male, before immediately returning to the sea for two months to feed. The transfer of the egg can be awkward and difficult, and many couples drop the egg in the process. When this happens, the chick inside is quickly lost, as the egg cannot withstand the freezing temperatures on the icy ground. The male spends the winter incubating the egg in his brood pouch, balancing it on the tops of his feet, for nine weeks until hatching. To survive the cold and winds, the males huddle together, taking turns to be in the middle of the huddle. Emperor penguin is the only species where this behaviour is observed - in all other penguin species both parents take shifts incubating. By the time the egg hatches, the male will have fasted for around 115 days since arriving at the colony - during this period of travel, courtship, and incubation, the male may lose as much as 20 kg. Newly hatched chicks are entirely dependent on their parents for food and warmth. If the chick hatches before the mother's return, the father feeds it a curd-like substance composed of protein and lipid, which is produced in his oesophagus. The female penguin returns at any time from mid-July to early August. She finds her mate among the hundreds of males by his vocal call and takes over the caring of the chick, feeding it by regurgitating the food that she has stored in her stomach. The male then leaves to feed at the sea, spending around 24 days before returning. If the incubating parent is not relieved by its partner before its own energy reserves are depleted, then it returns to the sea to re-feed, abandoning its egg or chick at the colony site. Abandoned chicks do not survive.

Cherry-Garrard has given detailed account of this 35 days journey in his book The Worst Journey in the World, published in 1922, and ranked amongst the greatest travel books. While I have not read the book yet, excerpts or fragments of it are spine chilling.

They encountered temperatures in the range of -40°C to −66°C, strong winds, blizzards, almost complete darkness, treacherous land and personal physical limitations. They had to man-haul their sledge the entire distance. The party had two sledges, but the poor surface of the ice meant that at times they could not drag both sledges. They were thus forced to relay, moving one sledge a certain distance before returning for the other, thus walking three miles for every one advanced.  This meant that at times they could only travel a couple of miles each day.

Gear, clothes, and sleeping bags were constantly iced up. Sweat froze inside their clothes, the breath iced balaclavas to their heads. Everything turned to stone. Each morning they had to pound one another's clothes and sledge harnesses for as long as an hour. Each evening it took three to four hours to make camp and dinner and get into their bags. Each morning it took three to four hours to start the stove, make breakfast, get their icelike boots on, and break camp.

Frostbites were common. Even within his thick fur mittens, Cherry-Garrard's frostbitten fingers developed blisters running their length. The blisters filled with fluid, and the fluid froze. Cherry-Garrard talks of pricking six or seven of the blisters and letting the liquid out, to great relief. Cherry-Garrard suffered from poor vision, seeing little without the spectacles that he could not wear while sledging. He fell constantly, sometimes tripping over ice, sometimes into crevasses. At one point Bowers falls into the bay. Wilson and Cherry-Garrard, not close enough to reach Bowers in time, watch their companion struggle to pull himself out. Bowers struggles in silence and they watch in silence. At one point, the blubber stove spit burning fat into Bowers' eye. He moaned all night.

After reaching Cape Crozier on 15 July, their tent was ripped away and carried off in a blizzard, leaving them in their sleeping bags under a thickening drift of snow, singing hymns to pass the time. Their survival during their return journey depended on the tent which they fortunately recovered half a mile away.

When they finally reached the penguin colony the little light was fading fast. They collected five eggs, and skinned three adults for blubber, which restored the exhausted supplies of food and fuel. Two eggs cracked en route. The three remaining eggs were intact but frozen solid. Back in the camp, Wilson thawed them out, cut little windows in each shell and pickled the embryos which were in an advanced stage of development.

After the expedition, Cherry-Garrard,  after struggle with the bureaucracy, got the three extracted embryos to the University of Cambridge where embryologist Richard Assheton sliced two of them into sections and mounted them on slides. But World War I and Assheton’s death delayed the complete examination on the embryos. The slides eventually made their way to anatomist Charles Parsons. He published his findings in 1934, 23 years after they had been collected in that absolute dark, frozen cold of the lonliest of places, and after two of three collectors had died, and after the recapitulation theory, on whose premise they had been collected, had largely been discredited. It was concluded that the specimens “have not contributed much to the understanding of the embryology of penguins.”

The shells, the single intact embryo and the series of microscope slides have survived for more than 100 years and travelled by sled, by ship, by train and by car a distance of thousands of kilometers to the Bird Group at the Natural History Museum.

What’s left to say?

What was the purpose of the Winter expedition? What were the individual motivations of these men? What are the extremities of endurance of human body and will? What is the measure of a life? What is the expanse and mystery of nature? I chose this story because every part of it staggered me. It poignantly juxtaposes futility with enormity - a lesson which the instant gratification world of today will find difficult to grasp. It talked about possibly different times and a different breed of men. Men who would volunteer for an arduous expedition out of spirit for adventure and daring overlooking own physical limitations; men who would venture into near death for advancement of science even the one they do not understand; men who would stand for something other than just the end result; men who would die for camaraderie; men who despite all the hardships have the sense of  balance to say: “Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on earth has a worse time than an Emperor penguin.”

Last line of The Worst Journey in the World: “If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg.”

PS: Cherry-Garrard died on 18 May 1959. After the Terra Nova expedition, he commanded a squadron in Flanders during the first World War. He suffered from clinical depression and spent many years bedridden due to many afflictions. He largely spent a quiet life, deeply distraught due to the death of his friends, and revisiting the question of what possible alternative choices and actions might have saved the South Pole team.