Being a Global Soul is not all bad

The immigrant experience can be isolating, given people never feel like they fit into mainstream culture, and often pine for their roots. This article from the Harvard Business Review, albeit for global leaders, provides a refreshing perspective that I thought I would share in this blog.. Being a global soul is not all bad Leelia walked into my office to introduce herself as one of our new Russian interpreters. In a million years I could not have placed her, given her personality is so endearingly global. I was absolutely stunned when she spoke to me in chaste Hindi and I could only stare while I stuttered a response that was grammatically incorrect. Leelia grew up in Russia, moved to Israel to explore her Jewish roots, and ventured to New Delhi where she pursued a graduate degree in Islamic Studies. She has numerous languages under her belt, is a connoisseur of all the cuisines of these familiar cultures and can fit in and adapt anywhere. She is what Pico Iyer refers to as a Global Soul! The following article states that a global soul “becomes familiar with local and global communities, and uses neither to escape the other. This takes physical and emotional presence. It requires staying put long enough and traveling a fair amount. Spending time with those who live nearby and staying close to those who are far away — showing and being shown around. Leaving a piece of heart with people and places, and keeping them in your heart wherever you are. Hard as it may be to reconcile local and global homes, it is a privilege to have a chance to inhabit both. “ http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/moving_around_without_losing_your_roots.html

Have you been to the Pacific Mall?

Today I wandered into the Pacific Mall, which is located in Markham just North of Toronto. I have lived 10 minutes away for 15 years and have never walked it's corridors. Talk about a cultural experience. With tiny cubicles filled with "random crap" (to use Uttara's coinage) from China and other Asian nations which abut the Pacific ocean, this was our go to place to set right a shattered front screen of an iPhone. This not so legal activity is carried on with great aplomb by young Chinese women who look like teenagers but manipulate those iPhones with the competence of Sensei, their delicate, dexterous fingers performing surgically precise operations to save the injured phone. It was 6 p.m. on a Monday night but we saw a long line forming behind us. The experience was utterly surreal. I had been transported to the Far East with hundreds of Chinese, Korean and Indian customers milling about me. Some Hong Kong rock star was belting out a song and the smell of pancakes wafted around us -teasing and tantalizing. We deposited the phone for what we were told would take half an hour and discovered more of this "mall" which had all the features of a Malaysian night market. There were piles of knock offs of every conceivable designer item, pirated CDs and videos, booths that will unlock your phones and hawker stalls which beckoned with interesting aromas of a wide variety of food prepared in tiny hole in the wall outlets. The whole place had the feel of transience as though this was reality being streamed in technicolour, obsolence built into everything on display and with stalls that can immediately be dismantled based on a tip regarding a possible raid. This thriving and bold haven of what is considered intellectual property fraud in the West, stands tall with no dearth of satisfied customers who leave it with a smile on their faces, mission accomplished. I obviously cannot admit to whether ours was. Whatever else it is not, the Pacific Mall is a cheap trip to the exciting East where commerce is done based on a different set of rules.

The gift of music - the gift of. tVS

There are some moments in life which you want to capture in some tangible way to re-live in their entirety.  Not just in a video recording but in a very real sense with all their accompanying poignancy.  Last night is case in point, when I came home to T.V. Sankaranarayan seated in front of our altar pouring his heart out in virruttams set to my favourite raagams – Hindolam, Shama, Brindavani and Hamsanandhi.  He rendered Paasurams from the Divya Prapandham in these raagams and gave me commentary on the meaning of this most beautiful form of divine tamil poetry -  Aandal’s courting of  her consort and her father Periya Azhwar’s devotion of him.  I was moved to tears and felt humbled by this simple man whose surrender to music and reverence for his guru, his uncle Madurai Mani Iyer, is so complete. Sukumar and I have known T.V.S for several years now and host him every time he visits Toronto.  I have never felt intimidated in his presence since he is so guileless and childlike regaling us with stories about his early adulthood and his tentative entry into the daunting world of Carnatic music.  Until our close encounter with him I had no idea about the courage it takes to delve headlong into this world where you are only as good as the concert you sing today and memories of your glory days are short.  That effortless flow of music can never be fashioned in the intellect and rehearsed but has to emerge from a wellspring of inspiration that is between thought and action.  And yet it is the intellect that stores the body of knowledge, polished and perfected through years of reflection and nuanced use of vocal chords.  It takes a self effacing man who sees himself as a conduit for the flow of this divine music to demystify this most challenging art form for us lay people.  However, the concert he gave, with little planning for order of songs, but with constraints based on conventions in Carnatic music was replete with mystique -heartfelt and moving, an homage to his guru, a romantic tryst with his God, a conversation with his audience and an expression of gratitude for the gift of music.  

Finding Blue Oceans

Today I had lunch with a dashing young Can-Indian IT entrepreneur.  He picked my colleague and me up in his white Range Rover and talked about upgrading to a Karma Fisker to leave less of a carbon footprint and leave more in his pocketbook from the gas savings.  We talked business over lunch and planned tech projects to stabilize our company's manage and store IT services.  I anxiously peeked into my phone to find out if we had a response to a quote for a contract renewal I was expecting, apologizing for my rudeness and stating the reason for my anxiety.  Alex understood.  He talked about lost bids to cut throat margins, diminishing returns on existing contracts and companies waiting to snatch away his flagship customers.  I felt oddly comforted to hear him echo my sentiments.  This was the worst of times.  However, we both talked about moving out of bloody waters where we compete with sharks in gory price wars and finding blue oceans.  I reflected on that age old adage of adversity being the mother of invention and how with every setback has emerged the need to innovate.  So at our little firm we have moved from in-person training to online, from translation to transcription and trans-creation (creating ad copy from Enlish into Spanglish, for eg). Soon we  may launch our online language schools offering tutoring in all languages through our five thousand strong language professionals.  But these will bring in revenues in the future.  What about now?  To which the fortune cookie at the end of the meal said "hope is the stimulant of life".  Also smart companies like Qualcomm and IBM invested in new product and leadership development, and customer centric programs through their most difficult times rather than cut back.  When the going got better, they reaped in spades.  Sigh - we just need to stick with the program and keep looking for those blue oceans.  Oh through all the commiserating I also knew that in facing the pitfalls that I do every day, I can legimately call myself an entrepreneur now.  

Guilty pleasures

I thought that the romance in my mundane life was over when suddenly I stumbled upon this mushy Hindi soap that I can’t seem to get enough of. YouTube be cursed, since I can watch the episodes on it over and over and vicariously experience its thrills. It’s not all bad news. Surely the spring in my step and the smile on my face as I listen to its evocative musical score, set to urdu poetry, is worth something? Other than a short phase, ten years ago, when I drove around town with my rooftop open listening to A.R. Rahman’s songs, rivalling my young Sri Lankan compatriots, I don’t remember being so enthralled over the portrayal of romantic love, where the protagonists pine and unite only to be ripped apart again. Needless to say, I am mystified by this soap’s profound impact on my state of being. I get transported to an era when life was simple and a look meant everything. Is this just a heaping dose of nostalgia with memories of juvenile crushes on boys whose names I did not even know and unrequited longing for life as portrayed in movies where the girl was wooed and courted? Or is it something much more primordial, as has been unleashed by “Fifty Shades of Grey”, whose 100 million strong readership has unabashedly admitted to their craving for the romantic and erotic? Whatever it is I will be glad when this phase is over so I can once again retreat into the comfort of familiar and (pseudo) intellectual pursuits. On that note – here’s a link to something unabashedly romantic for you… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96GVlVD_m78

Market values and moral values

Today I heard this great interview of Harvard Professor Michael Sandel where he explained how market values are replacing moral values in those parts of our lives we considered sacred. In other words, we are moving from being market economies to market societies. How so? In extreme cases, our societies outsource wars to mercenaries, we have companies that provide line standers for lobbyists who do not want to line up to get airtime before congressional committees and we have people who use body tattoos to advertise products and make a quick buck of it. The darker side is in the illegal organ trade or in people paying for prison cell upgrades (where prisons are privately run – really!). The process is insidious and is slowly eroding all our domains. We do not think twice about the commodification of water for example, a natural resource we thought should be readily available to all. Our wars started with one such natural resource oil. The next era of wars would be over water. In short, there were parts of our lives which we did not reduce to dollars and cents. It turns out now that nothing is so sacred. In my business which involves providing language services we experience the pressure of markets every day. We speak about quality and yet we know that price trumps everything, even for governments that purchase service. This is a disheartening trend especially in the delivery of human services. This is not to say we should not be efficient. We should be and lower our costs using technology as much as we are able. However, we need to stand for some breakthrough values such as building local community capacity and providing employment within our communities, measuring a service’s value based on the human rights it protects not the dollars it costs and looking at social impact in the long term of all the decisions we make for short term gains. Can we all make a decision today to stand for something other than market value? Harvard professor on American society: Everything is up for sale | The Raw Story www.rawstory.com Harvard University professor Michael Sandel on Monday lamented that almost every aspect of life in the United

Daughters and Rituals

As daughters grow older and move away they become adults whom you have to get reacquainted with.  Their tastes in music evolve, their friends change, they have travelled and have developed likes and values you did not see in them.  When they visit it is for a short while, a week or two maybe.  A few years ago when things got a little awkward between my daughter and me, we developed rituals.  Things we would do together when she visited.  Now we start her visit with a trip to the grocery store to buy healthy foods we both enjoy together.  I love to surprise her with new and tasty salads and healthy snacks.  This trip I introduced her to quinoa, a new brand of veggie burger and a delicious new salad.  We do early morning treks when we ask each other questions and get caught up with each others lives.  We always end up at Tim Hortons for coffee and Timbits.  There is always one trip to our favorite Indian Chinese restaurant as a family.   I drive her downtown to her friend Laura's for a night out and pick her up the next morning.  I do it because I love the time we spend together during those drives, even though she does most of the driving around town.  We shop at Joe's and Yorkdale, watch Survivor, the Biggest Loser or sitcoms.   She likes to visit the temple once and eat the prasadam.   We order her favorite whole wheat crust broccoli pizza from Pizza Pizza one evening and go out another for beer and snacks at a pub.  If time permits she and I  go to King West and look at consignment and antique shops for quaint stuff.  There is usually one community or social event where she meets up with aunties and uncles she grew up knowing.  Other than that she plays me her favourite music,  gives me clothes that she does not plan to use anymore and gives me advise on how to tackle work problems.  I offer my thoughts on her aspirations.  We have fallen into such a pattern that if i try to introduce something new, she will weigh in on whether or not it should be part of our rotation.   These rituals enable us to just be, rather than think about how to make "quality time".  I help her with her final packing, sending her off with nuts and cheeses she likes and eagerly await her next visit.