Dreams n Reflections

  Karma   is a “funny business”, that seems so hard to accept at times – but its full of surprises. Here is my little bit… Once upon a time, I had an assignment to visit a factory for some consultative work. It involved understanding how the factory worked, the processes & cost structures etc. Somehow (possibly due to some history with consultants!) the managers there, with support from their boss, decided to play it hard on me. They would only answer questions I asked, that too just to the point and only minimal interaction. As you may be aware, consulting outcomes are often determined by the quality of data & the conversations that happen with client-side teams. While I had the brief to suggest creative ways to come out of their current challenges, the factory team seemed to have a brief to “cooperate to the minimum”. I spent two days trying to get the people to speak, and on the third day by lunch break I was contemplating packing up, admitting defeat.  ...

  Let’s accept it , some of us are likely to be attached to our parents a bit more than others.  This attachment has the power to propel us forward and even guide us in testing times…and sometimes it springs a surprise. On the New Year’s Eve of 2021, my 85-year-old father took severely ill & after a short hospital stay and attempted recovery at home eventually passed away in mid-March ’22. Being deeply attached to him, his welfare and attempts at recovery had me struggling with inner anxiety while trying to keep a strong face for rest of the family and the world around me in general. It was indeed a challenging time.  After his peaceful passing away, there was a sense of relief. Relief, that his suffering had come to a peaceful conclusion, his passing away had happened at home amidst his loved ones, and let’s accept it, I didn’t have to be anxious about him anymore. In our relationship, celebration had always been a part of concluding any joint project we u...

  It’s a question often asked to a little kid... “Tell me what you want to be?”, and here I was, at 28, in an executive development program, organized at my first job, answering this question.  This must have been something like 1995-96. And my spontaneous response “I just want to be happy”. “Gentleman, could you please expand on it so we all understand what you are trying to ‘get at’ ..” said the facilitator, wanting to be “expansive” 😉. “..well lets say by the age of 40…at the most 45… I want to be “free”. Like, I want to be able to decide what I do with my time without having to think about office hours and work…while I will still have a bit of living left in me”. That must have been a boring response for a room filled with aspiring CEO & MDs. Well, in 2016 at the age of 47 I actually became “independent”!! The circumstances at work, at the company we had painstakingly set up in India over a period of 13 yrs, got to a point where my role became redundant. ...

  Sometimes things happen that make you question your understanding of the nature of reality. Here is the story of how it unfolded for me and got me interested in the realms beyond the rational material world. This was many years ago, around the year 2001-2. In the very early hours of the day, must have been a couple of hours past midnight, I suddenly woke up from an otherwise deep sleep – with a sensation that some intruder had entered our house. Such was the certainty of that feeling that I got out of bed very slowly, taking great precaution not to make any sound. I tried get a sense of any sound coming from all corners of the house. When I couldn’t hear anything …I even slowly tiptoed out of our room, without waking up my wife. Slowly moving around the house …checking doors, windows, bathrooms, and any possible hiding places…including the loft!! Finally convinced that it was just a bad dream…attributable to some of the infamous gastric events that result from carb intake...

  Its Friday evening, I am driving back home from work ...there is this usual traffic stuff happening around Mumbai...and I am flustered (possibly due to hunger, there is always physiology & biochemistry underlying much of human emotions!) I turn into the street that eventually, two turns later, leads to my apartment.   Its hard to miss noticing new shops over-running the footpaths...and consequently pedestrians walking on the street...OH MAN!!🙄 (the signature expletive of a frustrated Indian tax-payer!) I am thinking to myself...” man, someone's got to report these shops to the city administration”. Saturday goes flying by as it always does, and I wake up to a flat tyre, it's a Sunday!! A call to the usual mechanic gets a very confident reassurance that the problem can be fixed in an hour... ”I am away today, but I shall depute someone who works Sundays, don’t worry!” Half an hour later I get a call from an unknown number.... It's the puncture guy. Everything is fixe...

  After a crazy day chasing customer meetings in Chennai, I finally made it to my flight. Boarding on the “last and final call” I walked into a full flight as inconspicuously* as possible. Having located my aisle* seat, and nodding at the gentleman seated in the middle, I settled down. Boy, do I love my aisle seat these days!! For a person who has great fascination for flight & photography, the window seat with its opportunity to experience the best of both – was where my early travel days had seen me. Over a period of time though, and with too many pictures of clouds & terrains now in my collection, I have settled to benefits of the aisle seat…like being closer to the bathrooms & the possibility to stretch a leg or two in the aisle on long flights…is this called aging? …But any way. By the time we started moving, the gentleman in the middle seat to my right had already fallen asleep – must have had a long day too, I thought. Casual conversations with co-travell...

  It’s  a long story about how I happened to be hosting a couple of very learned Geshes (Tibetan Buddhist teachers) in Mumbai in the December of 2022, but let me dive in. Exactly one month after my father’s passing away, on 17 th April’22 I had a dream .. There was this person who I could only see as a silhouette …to whom I was repeatedly asking … “what’s your message for me” and the reply was “Every hour of your life, be virtuous!” The way I recognised it as my dad’s shadow in that dream - was because this conversation was happening while I was adjusting the radio antenna on the terrace of our old apartment in Vile Parle. It so happens, this was exactly the activity we father-son duo used to engage in on weekends. My dad was a ham radio operator & I was his handy man to run up and down from the terrace, turning antennas while he adjusted the frequencies and tuned into distant ham radio stations. The message in the dream was very clear, and worthy of following, bu...

  We are chatting away at my sister’s place, when she gives me freshly made goodies to taste. “How’s it?” is the eager question. “Ummm…mmmm…mmm…delicious…mmmm…scrumptious!!...” I say with a heaven ward blissful glance… But before she can bask in delight…there comes a voice from the other side of the table… “ OH Don’t believe him, …he always says that – you see he is a sales guy, he will never criticise” and there is laughter all around, drowning out my sounds of protest. Soon, the food is wiped off the table over great conversations that only happen with the best of family & friends…..but I am still thinking .. I am saying to myself, am I a people pleaser who doesn’t want to point out mistakes or badly assembled recipes …just to stay goody goody?... Is this a result of my long career in sales?   …being the over friendly guy in town? I mean, there have been instances in my life where folks called me “a salesman to the core” mistaking my politeness and implyi...

  My phone rings and its Pagnis Kaka –  I pick up the phone wondering if we need to order the water tanker again…but am surprised by his tone… “Arre, why didn’t you tell me you were visiting Goa? I would I have introduced you to .. wait let me come downstairs, anyway I have to give you these papers…” I quickly prepare some jasmine tea & await his arrival. You see we are both part of our apartment block’s managing committee, and there is always something or the other to be signed etc. Kaka is +80 by age but the most active member of our society and a hard core task master. Pandey ji ( about him, another story, another time) the electrician has a fitting introduction for Kaka – “Yahan pey Pagnis baba hai, isliye sab kuch lallantap hai, nahi toh…” making a hand gesture that can be interpreted to signify the end of this world(he means to convey that because you have Pagnis Kaka managing this building, everything is in working order, ... else…). This time Kaka not only ...

You wont believe what happened, the other day. I was invited for a lunch by this senior ex-collegue and dear friend, to Lake View Café - Powai. Back at my first job, Shankar dada was several years senior to me – and we shared a special bond at the workplace. Often travelling together to address product & distribution challenges across India. He retired last month from his job and was describing to me how he initially refused a send-off party. Then, someone from HR insisted, saying “if you decline, it will set a precedent for others after you who might want it, but won't get it”. So he agreed for his send-off. It of course gave him an opportunity to make a speech. He spoke of how one of our senior bosses , Mr.Khan, set a good example thru his actions. My friend, sitting across the lunch table says… " Ashim, I told them how Mr. Khan taught us the basic ethics of the workplace...  Wafadari, Imandari, Khuddari...by simply being a living example...." after he was don...

                                It was a special morning, but I almost forgot this dream as daylight dawned. With the day’s work behind me, as I sat down to relax .. it suddenly came back to me.  That’s when I picked up the phone & called my friend Shankardada. “You appeared in my dream early this morning. I dreamt that I was pressing your feet for some reason...and you were telling me something I have no recollection of right now. So, I thought I would check on you, as it’s been a real long time since we spoke”.  “Ha ha ha… is that so” came the laughter from the other side. “I am well, anyway, how are you my friend?” he asked still with a bit of astonished humour in his voice… ” and the dream part where you are pressing my feet ...i have no idea what it was all about...anyway...” After catching up on how things were with both of us, we landed up on a common point about how after almost f...