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!

Sunday reflections 12- On the lighter side!

There is competing to be first and then there is the other kind. I am sure you have done it and can relate. But can you guess? Ok here is a hint. It is a competition you have with people at home, generally your spouse. Still no clue? Here is another hint. It is competing to not be the last one to do certain things so you can escape doing other things. Come on you know what I am talking about. How often have you cursed when staring down an empty tube of paste? Tell me you have not squeezed the last of the shampoo in the bottle or bitten on the toothpaste cube to get the final remnants out, so you are not burdened with replacing it? Here's another one - pressing down the garbage so you don't have to replace the bag?

It's not because you need to fetch these items from the store. Not that. It's having spares in the cupboard, but not bothering to retrieve or not wanting to step out of the shower to take item out of the bathroom shelf or cupboard when you realize with irritation your spouse did not bother to replace after him. It's one of those things I dare not complain about because - not only will I be accused of being the pot that called the kettle black, but also will have thrown at me random statements to the effect "And who buys them every time? When was the last time you did?" All of which is rightful and will require me to bite back, for the sake of peace and harmony "but you won't replace an empty bottle or tube in the bathroom - never ,,,you will just wait for me to...however long it takes...what's the use of stocking all this stuff when there is none when you or I reach for it?"

About two weeks ago, I decided to change the rules of the game. I did not replace the body gel but decided to use a combination of baking soda and a natural product from Lush, both anathema to the significant other who loves the traditional soap with lots of foam. I wanted to see if the bottle would be replaced. And two days passed and still nothing. The bath gel bottle was by now nice and shiny, so thoroughly had it been cleaned out for the last remnants of soap, and this, after two long showers everyday! Given his very high standards of personal hygiene I grew suspicious and was wondering, horror of horror, if he had been using my expensive shampoo as a soap substitute? To rescue my shampoo, I immediately capitulated and replaced the bath gel. I then confronted him with my accusation. He turned and giving me an incredulous look and said "Why would I use shampoo in the place of soap? I am actually using that disgusting soap you have there." He might as well have said "check-mate" since he had gotten me to give in and replenish his gel.

Any lessons learnt? Only that if you are with someone as lazy as you are, just know that they will outsmart you in ways you never believed they could to put off doing the work - every time! How do I know this so well? Because I make my clean underwear outlast his so as not to be the one to take on laundry. So who has the last laugh now?!

Sunday reflections 11 - Finding that sweet spot

Uttara was at her MBA school alum meet (Tuck at Dartmouth) in Verbier, Switzerland recently. There were alum from the 70s to the present day, but a relatively small group. Most were super rich, white and mostly male. The exception being the three of them from her class. Being at the bottom of the totem pole and of modest means, they were hosted at the home of one of the alum who just happened to be a billionaire. His was an opulent 14 bedroom chalet with 3 elevators, pools and jacuzzis, liveried help and ski off and on in the famous and tony Verbier ski resort, the residence and training ground of the world's premier skiers. Uttara was surprised at how her group members were all super athletic, skiing down 3000 metre glaciers and even attempting ski jumps. She said to me "mom I was the worst of the lot, but with their pedigree they must have been skiing since they were toddlers". When I asked her about her host, she relayed that his grandfather had made his money in insurance which the grandson had then parlayed into business ventures and real estate investments in the coolest places around the world. Having put their four kids in the world's premier boarding schools, he and his wife divided their time between their homes on islands and cities worldwide, besides sojourning at the homes of Buffet (which they said was "comfortable") and Gates ( which they said was "magnificent"). Uttara made particular mention of the wife's 16 carat diamond ring. "However", she remarked, "they are pretty disconnected from how you and I live", and then she asked me "do you think they really happier than us?" and she added "it did not appear to me that they were? " "Well" I said "I have not really met anyone face to face who is that wealthy, but do believe it is all about finding that sweet spot where you actually know what you want, and have the financial ability to exercise that choice?”.

After that conversation I read an article in Bloomberg on the movement to increase the minimum wage in America from $7.25 per hour. Obama has suggested the magic number of $10.10. The libertarians who believe in doing away with minimum wage altogether are arguing that businesses will do better and employment numbers will be higher if wages are lower and people get paid what they are worth. They go so far as to say that in such a regime, people with low intellectual ability will also find work at $2.00 an hour. What this does not take into account is how much money one needs, to live. According to an MIT study the living wage in San Francisco is an ideal $26 per hour. A cleaning woman who makes $8 per hour is at about a third of that wage. She needs two full time jobs to eat and have a roof over her head, albeit under unsafe conditions. She cannot afford to fall sick and has to live in a perpetual state of anxiety about paying bills and staying afloat, while ensuring her kids, if she has them, stay out of trouble. This woman, I thought, will have greater difficulty finding that sweet spot provided by the choice that money can engender.

As for me, a conflicted middle class entity, I secretly covet wealth but am burdened with guilt over my secret desire when I know that a lot of it will come out of perpetuating the disparity between the super- rich and the desperate. So where is my sweet spot? From a sense of superiority over the thought that wealth is morally suspect, comes at the cost of exploitation and will get us into a state of depravity and apathy? Just saying..

Sunday reflections 10 - Glamorous dezi girl?

I distinctly remember the evening I returned from watching a matinee show of “Aap ki Kasam”. We lived in sleepy Trivandrum at that time and Mumbai seemed aeons away. I experienced deep melancholy as I came down from the “high” of the movie. There seemed such a great divide between the actual lives of Rajesh Khanna and Mumtaz and poor little inconsequential me. I remember looking down at my cotton dress and Hawai slippers wondering how life could be so unfair. Little did I know that the demystification and democratisation process would happen in my life- time. Or that Bollywood's ubiquitous quality would make it a choice noun/adjective in many languages, spicing up our lives and adding colour to it in so many ways.

So its no wonder Indian weddings are the stuff of Hindi movies. Readily available and mass produced quasi- designer clothes make us all look like heroines and the parties mimic movie sets replete with the glitz and glamour of beautiful people in their authentic Indian haute couture. Long gone are the benign wedding scenes where we wore silk sarees, repeating over and over the maroons and mustards for the wedding ceremony and the more daring blues and greens for the evening reception. Now our fabrics range from Tussar silks to rich velvets embroidered with expensive crystals and semi -precious gems. The outfits are imaginative and range from dresses and Ghagra Cholis to Sarees with a twist. No one wears sterile blouses airhostess-style with the back fully covered and a respectable high V-neck in the front. All the vogue are halters with the back and arms naked, off shoulder creations with one sleeve and blouses tenuously held together with strings knotted at the back. Accessories include armlets, chokers and hair ornaments that defy the imagination. Also, older women dress much younger making for great homogeneity in clothes between the young and the old. Having thus adorned themselves these beautiful women are ready to take on the dance floor to gyrate to the latest Bollywood hits for an eye popping spectacle. There are no dance parties today without the more recent “Bathameezi Dil” or “Chu nanana chu nanana” or vintage “Om Shanti Om”. Then there are the bhangra numbers and remixes set to a fast beat. Everyone knows the lyrics of the songs. As they lip sync and imitate Prabhudeva or Farrah Khan dance- moves, they look pretty authentic. Who knew life could imitate art in such fashion and Bollywood could fuel the imagination in this way.

Augmenting the celebrity experience are mobile devices which come with high-end cameras and immediate upload capability. So every wedding party has a post celebration twitter hashtag to crowd source all the pictures taken by the cameras around the room. Also, there is no telling where these photos will surface. Published on blogs and social media they could go viral just because they tickle an idiosyncratic fancy of an ADD challenged public. Long after the fad has faded the pictures remain. Bottom-line, the investment in all the finery is well worthwhile because memories no longer languish in a fraying photo album at the bride’s parents’ home. They are now dynamically available to be immortalised in technicolour and shared infinitesimal times to all and sundry.

I am sure with a twitter following of real people and zombies, appropriate hashtags to commemorate events and topics, picture uploads, we can all mimic the lives of the people we would have idolised in yesteryears. Who said we are not all celebrities? Tweet me at #glamorousdezigirl to find out more!

Sunday reflections 9 - The art of storytelling

Cartoon by Uttara Sukumar, Year 2000 (or so)

It is Oscar night and although I am indifferent to award shows, I love the movies and love a good story. But the best kind are the ones I share in person. Both my parents were great at sharing them. And more than myths and fables from ancient Hindu epics, we grew up listening to family stories. Amma's always had a feminist theme about oppressed women's subversive acts in the little village of Sattanadapuram, Tanjore, where she grew up. There was always a moral about showing courage and forbearance to triumph in the end. It featured women who slaved at home making and selling pappads while their husbands squandered away their manhood in their mistress' homes. Amma never minced her words. She embellished for effect, delivered with punchlines often reducing us to tears and rousing our passion to take arms in solidarity with women-kind. No story was too adult for us. I knew about sexual molestation of widows in joint families and the taboo topic of marital rape early in my teens.

Appa on the other hand had goofy stories which had us in splits. I really could not get enough of his sleepwalking misadventures, his near drowning experiences and his embarrassment over emoting as heroes did in the movies, when he was asked to sing film songs in public. There were always tales about men who over-ate at weddings, uncles who failed exams and went to great lengths to hide the fact at home only to have some busybody break the news in front of all and sundry, sibling ribbing and rivalry. They were coming of age stories all light-hearted and entertaining.

My parents made me realize the power of the narrative and I have always used it to illustrate a point when interacting one on one or when making presentations. Even when confronted with a problem I ask myself this question "I wonder how this story will end?" No wonder I loved my solo practice in law when I had it. I would invite people into my life to share great stories with me. And I was actually paid to listen. Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction got it right. You could not make up some of the real life experiences people shared with an unflinching straight face. A particularly poignant one was from a blind woman who was accused of uttering death threats to her blind partner on the phone after he changed his mind about marrying her following a hysterectomy that she underwent on his bidding!

Since Uttara spent all her summers in India, till she turned 16, she enjoyed her grandparents' stories. I carried on that tradition at home so much so that even today when we cuddle in our "mommy- daughter" moments she will bid me with " Amma kadhai chollu" ( Amma tell me a story). When she catches me embellishing for effect, she will roll her eyes in disbelief but not stop listening with rapt attention. I am so glad that storytelling was not considered gossip and banished from our home for being in poor taste. I have to admit that it gave us license to wag our tongues and kept us immensely curious about everything and everyone around us. We were always on the prowl for a good story.

Sadly that wonderful tradition of plain old listening to stories for fun has been lost due to the distractions from electronic devices. Staring at our hand helds, we just do not make eye contact and share tales from our heart and mind that excite, entertain or exhilarate us.

Let's park our devices, kindle our curiosity about everything and everyone around us, for a short while everyday, so the people we interact with and love, also bear witness to life as we see it through our utterances!