Sunday reflections 14 - Lessons for Uttara and Sergey

Sergey Brin a la Google should have the world at his feet. And yet he was willing to risk his marriage, reputation, his relationship with Larry Page and potentially his stature at the company for a whit of a woman - Amanda Rosenberg? Oh wait and he competed with another senior Google employee, Hugo Barra of the Android devices team, for her attention, going so far as to prematurely announce the latter's planned departure from the company? Something did not add up. So I caught up with a recent issue of Vanity Fair for the full scoop of why men and women act as they do? They have a plausible theory for his apparent craziness.

Sergey's wife, from whom he is now separated, runs a gene testing company. She tested him for the Parkinson's gene, given his mother's diagnosis in 1999 and, voila, found that he carried the mutation, thereby running a 50% chance of contracting it within the next 10 years. She quickly patented the gene to profit from the royalties of a potential cure. However, for Sergey, this was a wake up call to his own mortality. He now gave himself carte blanche to do what he wanted. Already dubbed the "Enlightment Man" for his zeal to organise the world's information and make it accessible to all, he now went a step further. Google X, the entity set up for outlandish innovations including Google Glass and self-driven cars, may not have seen the light of day but for his predeliction? He presides over the ultimate "cool" at Google, leaving the day to day slog of its operations to Page.

So what's the point of this story? How powerful our sense of mortality is in determining how we live today? Partly. But more to the point how we single pointedly rationalize our actions or find scapegoats in order to give meaning to our fears, unpleasant thoughts and sensations without even recognizing that we are doing this? We are ruled by them. So $30 billion notwithstanding Sergey's preoccupation is to beat the odds against Parkinson's. That as a constant theme determines what he does. It may have even become the organising principle behind his lofty goals for Google X. Nothing wrong with that. That we would rationalize our actions around certain themes in our lives is simple to understand. But the trickier part is where we look for scapegoats. Here we attribute our negative sensations to the world around with the immediate reaction that we deserve better than we have.

The only department where Sergey really "could" do better was to change his diaper-daddy role for that of a hot young stud. How else, when everything was going swimmingly? Enter Amanda Rosenberg a waif of a girl with a mercurial temper. His boring personal life was the scapegoat. Oddly enough, this realisation came to me when Uttara called to tell me she was having a bad day at work. I know that she loves everything about her life in England. The only thing she has little control over, which she can blame when she feels "off" is her job. I asked her questions based on which I made her realize, if she continues on the path of finding something to blame, for how she felt, she would look to change her job rather than herself. Too bad I could not ask Sergey similar questions, given accounts that he is remorseful for the mess he has made. Simply put, think of all the aggravation we can save ourselves if we stop looking for reasons to rationalize fear and pain and also stop reacting to them? Accepting everything without wanting to change things is not about being complacent. It is about de-linking thought from feeling. What we experience as physical pain and sensation is real but the thoughts associated with them are not..

Sunday reflections 13 - Dear Mr. Harper

Dear Mr. Harper

Last week, my organisation, MCIS Language Services successfully launched an online training to address human trafficking, a project completed under the auspices of the Ministry of the Attorney General for Ontario. We featured as our guest speaker a woman who has survived being trafficked. She is born and raised Canadian and contrary to the popular myth that women are trafficked from overseas for sexual exploitation, most trafficking is domestic and a significant percentage for economic gain.

Our guest's experiences fit the elements of the Criminal Code definition for the crime. What were they, you ask? Well, her captors induced and trapped her with a range of illegal drugs and used her subsequent dependency to force her into illegal acts from which they profited, not her. However, the police apprehended and charged her. She alone suffered criminal prosecution and spent jail time. Upon her release, when she tried to resist her captors, they drugged, beat and raped her, also threatening her child's life. After all that she had to endure, it is amazing that she is even alive to tell her story, not to mention quite intelligent and articulate.

Her sister had accompanied her to our event, and I sat chatting with them to experience a slice of Canada that was foreign to me. They are both from smaller towns west of Toronto, London and Brantford, respectively. I was deeply disturbed listening to them as I am sure you will be.

I found out that Brantford, a small town of 90.000 people has 3 methadone clinics. That it's downtown is a wasteland of people getting high. That opiates, crack cocaine, heroin, crystal meth (ice) are the drugs of choice. That the problem is so bad that the police are overwhelmed with requests to investigate drug related charges and just cannot keep up. That Children's Aid does not remove from their homes, babies who are neglected due to their mother's addiction issues, unless the police investigate for criminality, which they do not having become so accustomed to the cycle of people just reoffending. Who can blame them? They are frustrated and don't really see an end in sight? So enforcement is clearly not the answer?

In these societies we are talking generations of substance abuse. Both of these women spoke about the family in which they were raised. Their father and his siblings all suffered from addiction and related mental health problems. The sister told us that they lived in a society where the lure of crack cocaine exists in the space between the methadone clinic and her car. As her husband stepped out of the clinic there was a dealer waiting to get him before he could get to her car.

Isn't it sad that young men and women are preoccupied with getting high or with their struggle to stay sober? Isn't it tragic that our future generations are following this path with parents who tumble in and out of addiction and co- dependencies?

Our speaker, in her early forties, is graduating from a college program and entering University, obviously with a helping hand from the government. She is very bright and articulate and hopefully will make something of herself. However, this is a tough economy and I have no assurance that individuals like her can follow the course of a substance free life given the dysfunction they live amidst.

So how Mr. Harper are you going to help the town of Brantford and the hundred others like it across Canada? How are the people here going to become contributing members leveraging their intelligence and creativity to make something of themselves and of Canada? What can we do to multiply our tax dollars to get people to hope and dream big than to drown themselves in pain and despair numbing opiates?

I am most concerned about the kids. They certainly did not bargain for this life where parents and grandparents struggle with substance abuse and poverty. How can we give them a break so they come out of that vicious cycle that has trapped generations? How can we create their new normal?

I don't have a definitive answer. However, there are many inspirational models. South of the border is the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) where Geoffrey Canada (yes that is indeed his last name and he has been featured as one of the top 50 leaders in the world in a recent issue of Fortune) it's President and CEO has, over the past 2 decades, successfully tackled decades of similar decline from drugs and poverty with a business like approach in Harlem, New York. The New York Times Magazine has hailed this "one of the greatest social experiments of our time". Rather than have a charity do this as with HCZ, can your government and the local governments conduct an experiment even in one small community?

So not limiting it to just schools and education, it would go something like this. You would give amnesty to people for their petty drug related criminal activity, support them out of addiction, provide one on one support to the most vulnerable, set up vocational, recreational, fitness, spiritual and arts programs? Then focus on following kids on their educational path. Here you do not have to create anything new, just renew and reengineer existing educational and social services institutions to make them more impactful, tying dollars to results? Join hands with social enterprises to set up incubators for creative business ventures and subsidize on the job training and employment opportunities offered by them to local community members. Have a business school take it on as a cause célèbre to track successes and failures to create models to be replicated in other communities. I do think creative expression and enterprise are the only answer, don't you? When the model is replicated all over Canada, it will grow on its own momentum with less and less government support, don't you see? And Canada will set a shining example for all the world?

As a lawyer I know this is an issue for local governments to tackle. However, given its domino effect on all matters federal, not to mention it's impact on our country's future, don't you think you need to work with the other levels of government by making them accountable to deliver on your vision?

Let your government earn the reputation for laying the groundwork for a society where all achieve and thrive? Also think of all the money you will be saving and of the problems like domestic human trafficking that you will be addressing?

Let's talk?

Latha

A close encounter of a most beautiful kind!

I am in beautiful Alcala de Henares, Spain, 45 minutes from Madrid by train and the oldest University town in the world, built in the 1500s based on the vision of the brilliant Cardinal Jiminez de Cisneros . My experience tonight was nothing short of magical, as we walked the cobble stone streets, the foundation laid down by the Romans 2000 years ago, on which this city was built. Walking under a deep blue moonlit sky on a beautiful spring evening, my colleague and friend Veronica and I were transported to another era by a very quiet and gentle Spanish man, our guide on this night.

It all started in the cafeteria at lunch time when the waiter pointed to a middle aged man at another table who wanted to buy us coffee when he had heard we were from Canada. We were surprised and charmed. He was a regular guy in his late 50s with glasses, grey hair and a stocky form. Nothing remarkable. Then the waiter brought over this man's folder and pointed to a newspaper clipping. Two killed in a landslide in Alberta, Canada. One of them his daughter. Just two weeks ago. What heartbreak! We approached him through a beautiful young Spanish interpreter, our friend's daughter Doris, and offered our condolences. He reciprocated by inviting us on a tour of his city where he has been a policeman for 36 years! So at 8:30 p.m at the end of the day's conference proceedings, we met him on the grounds of the well-lit University, with our young interpreter. Thus started an enchanted evening with him taking us on a walking tour of this historic city. He regaled us with stories of the place's history and peoples who had occupied it - the Muslims, Jews and Christians showing us how the quarters that had housed them were clearly demarcated with symbols, the menorah, the crescent moon and the cross! We were awestruck by the architecture of those spaces and tenements, the summer and winter palaces, both museums now, the ancient courtyards and squares. We took pictures everywhere including beside the sculptures of the magnificent Cervantes, commemorated to this day with a literary prize in his name, handed out later this month to a writer of a Spanish work, by the King Juan Carlos on the premises of this very University. I remembered fondly excerpts from the classic Don Quixote that I had read as a child and realized happily that I was in the place where that great work had been authored.

Our friend Angel interspersed his tour with titbits about his deceased daughter. That she had been employed as an engineer and had just moved to Canada 5 months ago to work in the oil and gas industry. That she had previously worked as a tour guide in this very town and he felt closer to her as he took us around and played our guide.

Our tour included a peek inside the Town Hall and Council Chamber, not open to the public, and a viewing of exquisite paintings that those walls had on display!

Time flew by and we realized we were hungry because it was past 10 p.m. We were then feted with a delicious Spanish meal at a local haunt, where we were welcomed like house guests. After a quick exchange between our guide and the restauranteur, the beautiful waitress piled our table with an exquisite array of dishes - salads, croquettes, egg preparations, bread, cheese and the freshest olives I have ever tasted. It was a communal meal where we shared everything, digging in with our forks!

As we sat there utterly content after our delicious meal, our friend drew out a woman's wallet to pay for the meal and placed on our table the IDs and credit cards of a beautiful young woman who no longer had any need for them. We listened as he showed us her equestrian pictures on his smart phone and as he, with considerable restraint, whispered in a quiet voice that he had just buried her, less than a week ago, last Saturday.

It was close to midnight when he dropped us off at our hotel, offering to take us to other sites over the next couple of days and to the airport, on Sunday!

And of course, he made us promise we would come back with our families and give him a call! We would not have to worry about a thing, he assured us! We thanked him profusely for his kindness and generosity and he responded, "it's you I have to thank for this privilege." Of course I couldn't understand why!

We went to bed with sadness in our hearts but overwhelmed with the beauty of the place and the sheer experience of profound humanity that had pervaded that evening!

Travel tales - the Uber experience of a Toronto Mami

I read about Uber's revenue model in the latest issue of the Economist, in Uttara's house, and serendipitously ask her about it. She has used the service and we decide to book my airport ride, for my flight to Madrid, through Uber. I love the idea of a broker that auctions the service to the lowest bidder. The result - rates are impacted by volume surges, simple principle of supply and demand. I also like that the service is available at any time of the day or night provided you are willing to pay the price. Why would drivers not show up any time when they get to keep 80% of the fare? Being just a click away on a smart phone, I hear Uber is all the rage everywhere, including with Mylapore mamis in Chennai, India! Why should this Toronto mami be the exception?!!

That the service operates outside the regime of regulation is it's only downside. However, it appears it's benefits far outweigh any associated risks. Uttara and her friends swear by Uber and I decide to take the proverbial leap. I realize with some excitement that I am about to participate in a quiet revolution that is fundamentally altering how we live. An overhaul of the taxi industry is long overdue both for consumers and drivers. The state's role in regulating it, especially in an era of GPS devices, is anachronistic.

It is past midnight and we use an online service called "findacabbie.com" to do the booking. This, I am told, is like Expedia. It searches for and gets you the best cab deal. So the Uber model already has local competitors. My preference is for Uber since the company has branded itself well as a quality service with polite and punctual drivers. Uber's reliance on customer ratings of every ride ensures the use of a dynamic and interactive service model that drives quality and responsiveness. I cannot believe that it was going to cost me just 28 lbs to get to Heathrow from St.John's Woods, a good 50 minutes by road through normal traffic. Contrast this with taking the Heathrow Express, hauling my suitcase up and down stairs and on and off the tube and the express train, not to mention the 7 minute walk to the tube station, at a cumulative monetary cost of 20 lbs, in addition to the wear and tear sustained by my middle-aged body. Contrast this also with the marked black cab, which would have cost me well over a 100 lbs, burning a hole in my pocket book

It's 11 a.m. and my car is due any minute. Since old habits die hard I wait with some trepidation. It all seems too good to be true. I am told via Uttara's mobile that I am to look out for a silver Mercedes. It's all very surreptitious. Finally, after what seems like an aeon, I see the car. It has no visible signs of a cab. Uttara, who is at her office, tracks its approach on her phone and confirms. It is just five minutes late. The driver is a young Bangladeshi with a British accent. I ask him about his Uber experience. He says to me that he straddles both worlds. He extols the virtues of using a local cab company and picks that as his personal preference. I sense that he quietly drives for Uber to get on the bandwagon, where to fully resist would mean watching his business being cannibalised. But he is loyal to his roots - at least for the time being. London city has 5000 Uber drivers with several being added everyday. This wave may even give public transit here a moment of pause. For eg, why would anyone ride the Heathrow Express?! As usual I engage in chit chat and find out that he has jam packed days with rides from these "private deals" He has invested in land and a business spawning fish eggs in Bangladesh. He does well on his income supporting his wife, two children and with a chronically ill father. We arrive at Heathrow and I hand him 30 lbs. He carries my bag to the curb and reaches into his pocket for change - I ask him to keep the 2 lbs still filled with disbelief over the amazing value for money this experience has been! It was indeed an Uber special experience!