Thursday 26 January 2012

Childhood Ditties

No, this one is not about famous nursery rhymes!

I woke up this morning to the strains of a small voice singing "Copy cat, kill the rat, Sunday morning eat the rat". You know the one I'm referring to...the singsong, lilting one...

This 'innocuous' little song truly falls under the category of something that is not part of the curriculum in school or at home. I haven't been able to Google up a good explanation, yet, for the origin of this song. What makes it particularly interesting is the fact that while children learn quite a bit by imitating others, this one seems to be an Ode dead against this method of learning. Famous figures like Steve Jobs and Picasso have had many good things to say about the act of copying someone or something. After all, aren't most innovations mostly incremental? Go figure!

Another one that comes to mind is 'up the pole, down the pole, monkey choose the blackboard what color do you choose...’ as a means of making a choice. The phrase 'up the pole’, among other things, loosely translates to something along the lines of 'being in a difficult situation'. Guess the monkey bit refers to do with the young, restless mind(s) using this as an instrument for decision making. Decision making even for young uncluttered minds can definitely be a difficult proposition. How appropriate!

In any event, some of these really hit the nail on the head, while some appear to be more contradictory than they were probably meant to be by the original inventors and protagonists. Others fall into the category of 'does it really matter what it really means... Just go with it'. Never ceases to amaze me as to how many of these things live on from generation to generation through the power of word-of-mouth.
And with a little help of course these days, from my friend the digital medium...

Sadly, there are those that have gone the way of the Dodo such as 'Nila nila odi va' best visualized in the context of a 4 year old being treated to 'Nila Saapadu...' (Nila Tamil for moon, Odi Va come hither, Saapadu - mammum or food)
Curious to know if you remember any others...

Sunday 15 January 2012

How often have we seen this in the workplace or at home

I attended a course called Honest Conversations last year where the topic was primarily about what we say/don't say and what is really said is actually very different. 

This is me trying to imagine how the recipients of an email at work
could/would have interpreted it in their heads! 

Here is the situation

Boss-bee sends out an email note to 3 worker-bees asking for something. 
For the third time! Will the individual get what they are asking for?

Here's a list of potential responses that could be buzzing around inside the heads of the worker-bees...

A. Get it yourself - aka delegating upward.
B. I thought the others on the email were going to do it - be specific with your request.
C. I have no idea what this email is about - he's wasting my time and he should know.
D. I need to make him beg - not a priority for me. And he should know.
E. Long emails - matter of time before he exceeds his email quota and won't be able to send such long emails.
F. I want more communication from the boss - when was the last time he spoke to me without asking for something.
G. All of the above 

A little bird tells me that all of this could apply at home as well. 
Just ask people in households with 2 or more residents!

Sunday 8 January 2012

10 Reasons to Blog

Here's my list. If any of this resonates with the reader its pure coincidence and not intentional :)

0. I was trying to find something to do during down-time between games on TV.

1. Sudden Eureka moment when I was in the shower.

2. They've made it so easy, its almost a crime not to.

3. I'm playing catch up. Still don't have a Facebook account or Twitter or Google+ account yet.

4. Its the one thing that my wife doesn't do (at least not yet) and I can (at least pretend to).

5. Gives me something  to talk about during the next Madras Kutchery season at the Music Academy Cafeteria.

6. Some day this may actually count as a skill on my CV.

7. I would like to show up more often on Google searches.

8. Makes me feel like I'm doing something important at home. Beats surfing-the-web or watching TV,
when it comes to convincing myself that I've done something useful.

9. A new 'Get-out-of-jail' card if I may. If I can actually write 10 sentences together, I may be able to convince my wife to help the kids with the homework or take them out for haircuts when its really my turn to do so.

10a. Clears my conscience that my last cogent sentence was composed many, many moons ago.

10b. I wouldn't, if I could write a real book.

10c. Part of New Year resolutions list. This one is off mine :)

I sure hope this is my first&last/only 'top 10' list of any kind. As you may have observed, I definitely can't limit myself to 10. May have to make these 'top 10+ '!

A Game of Book Cricket

This occurs in the year 2011.

Aneesh came up to me in the afternoon and said, "Appa, can we play something?"

I was in the middle of reading a book. Suddenly it occurred to me that here was
a chance to share with him a simple game I had played during the monsoon season growing up in Madras.
A game of Book Cricket.

For someone like Aneesh just getting into cricket, here, I felt, was another means to enhance the enjoyment from the game.
For someone like Aneesh just beginning to read numbers, here was another learning tool.

I brought out my time machine. My new toy for the Holiday season. 
Einstein's theory that nothing travels faster than light had been proven to be wrong and time machines were the latest rage. So, I set the dial and we transported ourselves back to 1978.

I told him to go and get his book and he did so.
"Please open your book and keep the page open", I said.

He did and looked up with a look that indicated him asking me if he had gotten that instruction correct. Curious, how he seeks approval for almost everything. Non-verbally almost always. 
What is unwritten or unstated can almost always been disputed successfully during future disputes. Especially by a 4-year old. Or a WS executive feigning ignorance.

"Good! Now here are the rules", I said.

"Look at the page number on the bottom of the left hand page. If the ones place has 4, it means 4 runs to the batsman. If its 2 it means a 2, 0 means out, 8 means 1, 1 means 1..", and we spent
the next 15 minutes getting tutored on the rules of this fine game.

He was just getting started with names of cricketers. So we got started putting together
teams. India and Australia were playing a series and he knew names like 'Doni' as he called MS,
Rahul, Sachin and a couple of Australian players. To make things more real world, we added names
such as Anirudh, Ankur and a few of his other playmates from Jasmine and school.

And so, the games began. It was an hour of good clean fun. Whenever one of the sides disputed a
decision, the DRS was brought up as a means for problem resolution. The resolution process went something like this:
Was the page worn out from being dog-eared too often
Was the page worn out due to overuse, was the book shut too hard before the next ball was 'delivered'..
etc...
Appa was the 3rd umpire of course! Rank has its privileges.

The difficult one to resolve was when a '0' - out per the rules of the game - was quickly changed into an '8' by a very adroit flick of the offending page by 4 year old fingers, followed by a solemn statement of 'Not out'. Would have made someone like a WG, known for calmly putting back on bails after being bowled and continuing to bat, a very proud Doc!

Fascinating to see how kids learn to resolve issues amongst themselves, address issues with rules that don't make sense or are not favorable to stakeholders in a civilized manner.
Resorting to fisticuffs works too, as most adults will admit to!

And then came the familiar refrain.
"Appa, Im hungry".
That brought in the realization that we had to get back to reality in 2011.
So I set the dial and we transported ourselves back to 2011 just in time for some freshly made Dosais..