One man's wisdom is another man's gibberish!

There has been a noticeable silence on the blog. Work was hectic. So was Yoga.

Did the "60 day challenge" again at BYSJ. 60 classes in 60 days. It was a lot easier than last year and I did all the classes without missing a single pose. Also learned a lot during this challenge as the teachers picked on me in class knowing that I appreciated their feedback!

On one of those classes the studio owner/ teacher who knew of my dancing days mentioned something in the middle of the triangle pose. This pose is called a "master pose" because it an all body workout on its own. Used to do the pose like the one below.. (that was my best attempt at understanding the dialogue for the pose)

In the middle of it she looked at me and said "stretch the crown of your head towards the wall, like you strech your head while ballroom dancing" . I knew she was talking to me and stretched my head! Then she went "keep going, keep going, tilt your head some more so it is perpendicular to your shoulders again" and in a magical moment, my body nicely aligned itself in one straight line from shoulder to toe.

It also sent my heart racing at a ridiculous speed and it felt like my lungs just could not cope with the sudden demand from the heart. Have never felt a rush like that before.  Tried to capture the change with some help with the Little one who took both the pictures.

This is still not perfect. The idea is to get the profile of your face visible in the front mirror, which means I should tilt even more and also lock my knee a lot more. This is a decent change though to the original way I used to do this pose.

For the last three weeks, have been doing it the right way or close to the right way.

When that miracle class was over and we were all walking out, this lady comes to the teacher and goes "What was that gibberish about the dancing?" and the teacher looks at me and goes "See Sundar, you got it. It changed your pose 300%.. but only because you knew what I was talking about. To anyone else the concept of stretching the crown of your head perpendicular to your shoulders to look taller would not make any sense! This is why the dialogue is generic enough for everyone.”

My original thought was "I have been doing this wrong for 3 years!" ... Actually it used to be worse as my hip would rise up and I would do a Pentagon instead of a triangle for almost a year. Then Jim Kallet fixed it and made it more like a trianlge in an all day special class. By the time I drove home the thought was different.. "I can do it right for the next 30 years!". Yoga is definitely helping me see the positive side of things!

There was a lot more learning during this 60 day challenge. There were a lot of new people who came to class at the beginning of the year. New year resolution to try exercise? So the classes were a mix of 60 day challengers and new comers. Some of the new comers have great difficulty in adjusting to the heat and to the learning process. In one class a guy in the last row decided go lie down 10 minutes into the class. The teacher requested he sit kneeling down instead of lying down at that stage of the class and to keep his head above his heart. He burst out shouting "No one tells me what the F to do. No one!" The whole class was frozen for a few seconds. Then the guy suddenly took his mat and bolted out the door.

There were many thoughts going through my mind from teaching, learning, why come to a class if you cannot listen to a teacher, Sandy Hook, the fact that no one had a phone inside the yoga room in case this escalated to something else.. etc. etc. All these thoughts in the middle of the yoga class, where we were supposed to "still the mind". The teacher expertly ignored this and went on with the class and everyone picked up where we left off and finished the class. It turned out to be a great and unforgettable class.  Have no idea what everyone was going through in their mind, but I learned something. My mind races to find the nearest escape route when it thinks there is trouble and I have to work on that. Maybe the sages of yore were standing on ice and fire to do their penance for a reason?!

There are also other lessons learned with respect to encouraging others before and after class and receiving encouragment back from people whose names we do not know! It is truly a touching experience. Sometimes folks inspire you in the class. Was this close to sitting down one day for a pose when the guy next to me gave me a "You better not sit down" look and I pushed myself to keep going. On another instance, I was losing my balance over and over again in the bow pose and was frustrated. Looked at the mirror and saw a lady who had only one leg hold on to the ballet bar and do the pose. After that there was no frustration. I still fell out, but was okay with it.

In another class a couple decided to move their mats perpendicular to everyone else while doing the triangle pose. The teacher politley requested that they do it the same way as the rest of the class. The couple decided to ignore the teacher and rearrange their mats anyways, inconveniencing all the folks around them (it kind of breaks the symmetry in the room and creates a logistics issue for the everyone around them). My first thought at the end of that class was "Yoga is not for everyone".. but then again, it is not a Yoga issue. Maybe learning is not for everyone. If you are closed to what the teacher is saying, you are not going to learn anything. If you want to do things your way, why bother to come to a group class?! So far, I have listened to the instructions from the teachers and have only improved! It is easier said than done in a culture where folks treat teachers as service providers! For my part when someone tells me before or after class that the teachers are too rigid and inflexible, I tell them it is for their own good. Only if you "attempt" to do things the right way, you can improve!

Was also lucky to be able to do this challenge given my travel got postponed multiple times. Originally I had no hopes of finishing it given the travel schedule. San and the kids pushed me this year to go and keep going. They were rooting and cheering for me every day. Reminded me of days when I would push my Muslim friends to keep their Ramadan fast and not give up! Next year's challenge will have new internal goals!

In the meantime, Jr. has agreed to give Bikram Yoga a try. I am thrilled!

ps. The towel in the photos is not in the right direction.. Had to keep the towel that way at home so I didn't drip sweat on the hardwood floor! It was just after a class and was still sweating! Apparently one should be able to do this pose on a block of ice without slipping, if you use your inner thighs properly!

The vegetarian VP

Over the last year or so, there are friends that make jokes like "How is Mr. Vice doing?" , "What's up with the Veep?" etc. which are all references to my VP title at work. 

The irony of the vice thing is not lost on me. As a person who is vegetarian by choice, a non smoker, non drinker of coffee, anything carbonated and anything alcoholic, there is a severe restriction when I eat outside.

Folks who have worked with me over the last decade know that I always bring my own lunch box and eat my rice with Rasam, Sambar or plain yogurt with a curry or two. A perfectly okay meal that seems to meet my dietary needs and food allergy restrictions. 

The demands on socializing outside of work definitely increase as one moves up the management chain. At some point, it becomes a necessity to go beyond meeting at Starbucks or the local bars to some high end dining locations. 

To the amusement of the others at the dinner table, yours truly always toasts with plain water or a glass of orange juice. The 400$ bottles of wine that are sniffed and then passed around make for amusement from my perspective. Still a value shopper, I can never understand why a bottle of wine should cost 400 bucks and if the folks at the table can really differentiate betwen a 400$ bottle vs. a 40$ bottle on a blind test. Then again, I am probably not qualified to appreciate wine as I lack the experience. 

Recently at a friends place we had a discussion on "If you have a VP title, your job is to do more business and less technical stuff.. even if you are the VP of Technology... so how can you be efficient as a VP if you don't drink or eat meat or go to places where people smoke?"

That question threw me back! It was never part of the job description as a director, senior director or VP! Was it one of things like the "code red" in "A few good men", an unwritten rule of sorts? I started to wonder if my job would be better done if I drank a lot instead of being the designated driver at these dinners! 

Where the meat figures in this is still beyond me. Most of the restaurants I have visited have at least one vegetarian option if in the US. However, I did see disappointment written large on the face of a head Chef at a restaurant outside the US, when our host was translating. He pointed at me to the chef and said "do you have anything vegetarian?" and the response was "we have mussels, clams. does that work?" and I nodded saying "No. those are not vegetarian" and the Chef said "Oh, No!" in their language. They discussed for a few more minutes and finally got a large salad specially made for me. To compensate they gave me a double portion of chocolate dessert! They were extremely happy that I loved chocolate.

It is true that becoming a dedicated Yogi and practicing Hatha Yoga and simultaneously doing meditation on a daily basis makes folks around me think I am going to become a monk any day and walk into a forest. Given that there is a darling wife who cooks for me to remind me of the finer things in life and two daughters who hold the key to my breathing, there are no plans to become a monk at anytime. It is always easy for folks who claim enlightenment to walk away from social obligations, but it is a challenge to have a clarity of mind and still do what matters on a day to day basis.  

The side effect of doing Yoga and meditation is that I now have the resolve to say "No" to things I do not have to do or want to do and still strive on being the best at what is required. The first contradiction to that was the question raised "you cannot be the best you can be if you don't drink!"

Time will tell if success on the job was ever compromised by being a Yogi! So far, I think not. Every person I have interacted with at these dinners seems to appreciate my abiilty to say "no" to expensive food and wine and stick to my salad, bread and chocolate cakes. My colleagues who know of my allergy history have no complaints. 

Someday, when I retire from being the busy technologist, will write a book with this title. There are simply too many funny stories to share. Given the blogs separation of work and blog policy, those stories have to wait post retirement.

Nelson, my man.. my mai'Man

Last week after what can only be described as a long and ardous work day, came home, made some tea, sat on the couch and logged into Facebook. 

The news feed had at least 25 references to Nelson Mandela passing away. If I were to plot a histogram of the number of letters on the post (including forwarded or attached links) it would look something like this..

Granted I rounded off the letters, but still this is a fairly accurate picture. Where was I? Yes, it appeared as though my main man Nelson had carpet bombed my Facebook feed through my friends.  The one long post was a cut paste job of how the US as a country was actually trying to keep Mandela in prison as long as they could, call the ANC a terrorist organization, supported the South African government in his initial capture, etc.  and pretty much stopped short of saying "if you are American, don't bother talking about Mandela". 

After digesting the news feed at the end of the long day and doing some Googling, Twittering, etc. I came to the following conclusions:

1. Nelson Mandela had definitely passed away, and given the outpouring, had already rested in peace. It was a sure thing for the man.

2. On that day people all over the world probably said "RIP Mandela" instead of the usual "Jai Ram Ji ki" , "Allah o' Akbar" or "Praise the Lord" .. Hell even the Namaste in the Yoga room was probably replaced by "RIP Mandela". 

3. There was a clear trend of certain articles related to Mandela, but the surprising ones were the US is no friend of Mandela variety which were getting more rounds than the "did you know his middle name was Troublemaker?" type articles.

Given all this Mandela, I asked the kids "Do you know why Nelson Mandela was?" and the little one, crackerjack (mundhiri kottai translated wrong) that she is, said and I quote verbatim:

Yes. I know! Mandela was a good guy who fought for the freedom of "Africans", then they put him in jail for a long time and when he finally came out he won and helped the Africans, but the guys he fought didn't like him and so they shot him"! 

I was like "Wow".. Someone just rewrote history and mixed up MLK with Mandela. I know there are parallels with respect to fighting for black people.. but seriously! So, I broke the news to her that Mandela did die "peacefully" in his bed at the ripe age of 95. San may have had a hand in this history lesson is my guess.. 

Now where were we again? Ah, yes! Mandela had passed away. We went to Jr's winter concert band performance at her school and guess what ? The conductor is dedicating "Mozart's last requim" to Mandela as a fitting tribute. Irrespective of how he was remembered while alive, Mandela had definitely touched anyone and everyone for 24-48 hours at least, in an all pervasive way by dying.

My initial rant at seeing all the forwards was "Why are people melting icebergs by forwarding things in the name of showing some respect to a dead world leader?" Ok, I know there are folks going "what? Melting icebergs?". Let me explain.

In my day job, I make a memory. All of you use memory all the time without realizing it. When you do that harmeless "R.I.P. Mandela" post on FB and send it to all your friends, it gets written in a lot of places on a lot of memory chips, disks, solid state drives etc. Now it takes energy, a very small miniscule amout to write and read this data. However, this adds up. Just do the math. A few picoJoules of energy multiplied a few Qunitillion times is already in Mega Joules.. again crude math but you get the picture!

Was just thinking aloud "what is the piont in making a better memory and giving it to people if they don't use it wisely.. the more memory you give, the more RIP posts are going to go around. More folks will instagram their dinner. . still more icebergs will melt etc. etc." Did I say it was a long day?  Did come around eventually to accepting that irrespective of what I thought, today the world is more connected than ever and it is okay for everyone to connect in whatever way they want. Trying to regulate how someone uses something like memory was a stupid thought in the first place. Probably ranks on snobbery! So I stand corrected. 

That said, my kids did ask me what I thought of Mandela or what I knew of him as though I was supposed to know him very personally. So here is what I remember of Mandela ..

It was the late eighties. Prannoy Roy had a wonderful program that aired late night on Doordarshan (only Indian channel at the time) called "The world this week". In that we would get glimpses of world events. We got to see video clippings of Mandela and Apartheid. It was like watching the caste system on steroids running out of control and one man who was the voice of reason. I didn't give him even 50/50 odds at the time of repealing Apartheid. 

Early nineties. I come to the USA as a student to Philadelphia. Back folks don't have the same status as white folks when it come to financial equality but it was heartening to see the US as a true melting pot of races. In a way it was great that my entry to the US was in Phili that gave me this rosy view of the US. If I had gone to some place in the mid-west, my outlook on the country would have been very different. Mandela becomes president, Apartheid is no more and we are now discussing real important issues in the grad student lounge on what this means to Cricket, Allan Donald, Alan Lamb, Gary Kirsten.. etc.   Most of you won't understand, but some of you will! This meant the Indian team would be one more down in the world rankings after yet another country, "South Africa" now kicks its butt in Cricket. It was too much to bear.  On the bright side, there was one blackish looking dude in the South African squad. It was kind of like a precursor to watching Obama become president.

Mid nineties. Remember having a conversation about Mandela with another student at RPI. "why would she divorce him after going through all that?". It was a conversation on divorcing at 70+. At the end of the conversation it was clear that I did not understand Mandela, Winnie, people in general or the concept of divorce.

Then things changed in my life. Mandela was mostly forgotten as was cricket. There was the occasional news that he was sick, dying or both and a potential backlash if he died. Never got that. Given that it has been almost 20 years since Apartheid was lifted and things have improved slightly, why would South Africans suddenly erupt in violence if a good man died at a ripe age after accomplishing something so phenomenal. Unify two races after hundreds of years of animosity and oppression? 

The answer came to me in a flash! Why did people in Tamil Nadu go vandalize shops and disturb law and order when MGR (an actor turned politician) died ? He was no Mandela, but the crowd went into a frenzy. So maybe the press was right in their thought process? 

Well, the good news is that the man and the country whose people he unified, are both resting in peace almost a week after he passed away. 

If anything, that is the true legacy of my main man Nelson!