School Notes - Part 1

Nowadays, I’ve been dropping Adi to school in the mornings due to some technical issues with his school bus routine. Today we’re running a bit late and I’ve just put on my best Michael Schumacher hat, stepped on the gas pedal and  managed to drop Adi before the 7.40 bell rings.

I don’t know if it is just me being in a grumpy morning mood, but to make matters worse, a heavily made up, garish red lipsticked mom who had her kid in tow, bumped straight into me. She mumbled an apology, but what struck me was, why the heck was she dressed up like THAT. It was early morning, and what in the world motivates someone to dress up like that to drop their child to SCHOOL! I mean, you’re not coming for a social do, are u?

So I decided to list down the kind of characters that I've had to grin and bear while dropping my kid to school 

Specimen 1: Mrs Red lipstick – The red lipsticked, short skirted, SUV driving Mom (who cant park in her given parking space) of a 10 year old clearly needs to be reminded by someone that its easier to just walk around with a sign board on her neck saying “available”

Specimen 2: Mrs. Botox – Clearly Mrs Botox has had herself botoxed from some discount offer available during Dubai Shopping festival, else why will her face look like that!!! unless she got a free Nose job (which went all wrong) and a lip job (and whatever else jobs) as part of her Botox offer. Someone needs to tell her that there’s something called a “aging gracefully” look most men like better than her current state of affairs.

Specimen 3: Mr. Suits – Mr Suits is always in suits, almost makes me feel he sleeps in them also. Yesterday Mr. Suits was clearly wearing his best suit possible. Grey suit with little white prints, grey tie and hair dripping gel. Maybe he should just ask out Specimen number 2 for a date!

Specimen 4: Mr. Bum Crack – This specimen was the worst disaster I have had to encounter. He was this late 30s beer bellied chap, who seems to think he’s still in his teens and can carry off wearing those low slung jeans with his boxers in view. So when he bent over and kissed his child bye, yours truly had to go through the agony of having full view of his hairy butt crack for a full 2 milliseconds! 

Oh groan!

Random impressions

I may be rambling here, but am just in one of those moods today and came across this scribbling that I had done in a novel which I had bought on 04/03/2001.

she left impressions in the sands of time
washed into infinity by a rouge wave's climb,
the yearning never stops with one life,
entwined forever as man and wife.

Generations have come,eons shall succumb
The ocean waves will continue to drum
and then the rare few shall always create
Impressions in the sands of time forever

I dont even remember why or when I wrote it this, its just one of those scribbled things. I'll pick up on this when I remember what the heck this was all about.

PS: Ignore the madness

Every sinner has a future

A while back I happened to re-read the line "Every Saint has a past and every sinner has a future". It remained in my mind for a long time. I wrangled with the statement and tried to find parallels from my personal experiences of people around me, and I found several.

Here is something that I spotted today, in the FT Weekend edition titled 'Syria activists risk all on Homs supply runs'. It told the story of how professional smugglers were helping Syrian activists in bringing in medical supplies into Homs and taking out the wounded into safety.

One smuggler who initially started doing this for material gains, is doing the same for the sheer joy of helping the needy.

"I am so happy and proud to do such a thing" he says. "I am helping poor people who are asking only for freedom"

Here's to freedom, here's to a better world; Here's hoping that every sinner has a future, because every saint has a past!

Dont try and figure if there's a long overdue confession hidden somewhere in these lines above...its called writer's license (aka poetic license) ;)

...because failure is an event, not a person

Over the past year, I have pondered several times on education. No, I don’t plan to get back to college again, but the last year gave me quite a bit of time to think on Adi’s education. Living in Dubai gives you so many options for your child’s education (The UK Board, International board, Indian, American Medium etc.), that it sometimes confuses you.

My perennial crib and biggest fear with the Indian Education system is that it refuses to teach children values like innovation, humanity, empathy or social good and seems to drive them towards a single minded goal of becoming fat cat bankers or a faithful, analytical, white collar “employee” who is destined to a life of mediocrity making power-point decks or coding software.

I wish education systems also teach children that failing sometimes is not a crime. My take is that failing while trying something spectacular (and unconventional) is not a crime. I want them to be taught that, with each failure, they should just forgive themselves and move on into the next spectacular untested idea in their chosen passion. As I read somewhere, I want them to be taught that "walker there is no path; the path is made by walking"

It is but definitive that in our children’s lifetime, they will encounter far more black swans than the ones we have seen in the past decade (Dot com bust, US Sub Prime, Greek Debt, Middle East realty, War etc) and it is not education, for the sake of education which will help them survive through the same.

Across these economic catastrophes, intentionally or unintentionally, I have seen several friends and peers switch career paths and try the untested. Some succeeded; some remain in comatose while a few others have met abject and complete failure.

Without naming them publicly, here’s a sample of a few that got me thinking :

 - Friend who worked with some of the best known TV stations in media sales/ Asia; leaves it, and starts an adventure travel company (happily converting her passion to her profession)

- Asset Manager/ stock broker starts a slick deli/ restaurant in Dubai after he got retrenched from his job last year

- Finance manager in an IT company who starts his own IT company and finally ends up selling it and ends up rejoining the industry as an employee all in the last 18 months

 - And the most exciting of all, is that a close confidante, is in the process of setting up an amazing web 2.0 venture/ tech venture based out of Dubai. From what she studied to become, to what she's doing now & where she's headed...the trajectory is definitely upwards :)

The one common thread in those who succeeded (after failing elsewhere), has been that I found them to be more well rounded human beings.

By “Well rounded”, I mean those who have strong foundations, a cosmopolitan/global view of life and higher sensibilities. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to say that those whom I have seen succeeding were fans of Luciano Pavarotti and Mozart, I mean to say I found them to have absolute clarity on what they wanted out of life and knew how to live life to the fullest.

and then I wonder,if its just nature or nurture that endowed them so...