Pic: courtesy Amazon.com

In Dec 2011, my brother-in-law brought the second batch of books — to Chennai. So far so good. Since his parents were going to returning to US with him, I had a time window of two weeks to collect the books. Sathish, an ex-colleague and friend, (who has a home in Chennai) picked up the books. Two months later, he brought them to Bangalore. I finally picked them up in Mar 2012. A grand total of 9 boxes but they are all hardbound so quite heavy. I present the list below along with my commentary. As I accumulated these books over the years, I’ve been pretty religious about annotating when (and sometimes ‘where’) I bought the book.

• Tintin in the new world
• Bought at the Stanford Bookstore on Jul 27, 1998 (this would have to a week after moving to the SF Bay Area from Chicago – heady times!)
• Ambassador’s Journal: John Kenneth Gailbraith
• The paperback cover on Amazon is NOT the one I own. Mine has a green cover and it’s a hardbound. I’m currently reading this humorous and insightful account and transcribing my favorite bits – JK Galbraith has his very own Galbraith category on my blog.
• Primal Leadership
• Bought in Dec 2005. Seems interesting enough but still remains unread. Found a bookmark from The Lenox Hill Bookstore, NY though it doesn’t prove that this book was purchased there. For the longest time, I was incapable of walking out of a bookstore without  purchasing at least one book.
• Mastering the Rockefeller Habits (by Verne Harnish)
• 12 pages of testimonials, ghost writer
• Hard facts, dangerous half-truths & total nonsense (by Stanford U Professors Robert Sutton & Jeffrey Pfeffer)
• Professor Sutton was visiting Yahoo campus (2004/5) for a talk on “The Ambidextrous Organization” — this was a freebie book from the event. It’s a promising read.
• The complete works of O. Henry
• Bought in April ’95 (during my Chicago years) – this is arguably my first/only bibliophile book and warrants a separate post for one other reason – suspense!
• All things bright and beautiful (by James Herriot)
• Bought second-hand (undated).
• The new industrial state (by John Kenneth Galbraith)
• Bought in Mar 2000.
• Bhagavad Gita (in Hindi)
• Bought in Dec 2004 from the Birla Temple, Hyderabad. Went to Sunnyvale, CA – then a few years in a San Jose attic, a year in a Cupertino garage, a few months in Chennai and finally to our Bangalore apartment. Yes – a well-travelled hardbound indeed.

There’s more good news for the rest of our book friends in my sister’s garage. Another ex-colleague and friend (Ajay) is on a business trip to the Bay Area and has agreed to bring back a ‘significant number’ of books. How significant? I won’t answer that lest it jinxes things. Stay tuned… part 3 in this series is not too far away.

Pic: courtesy japaneserecipes.wikia.com

Sheena Iyengar, in her fascinating book on choice – The Art of Choosing, shares numerous stories demonstrating the cultural psychological differences between individualistic societies (like the US) and collective societies (like Japan). The story below is particularly revealing.

In 1995, I spent several months in Kyoto, Japan, living with a local family while I did research for my PhD dissertation with Shinobu Kitayama, one of the founders of the field of cultural social psychology. I knew I would experience cultural differences, even misunderstandings, but they often popped up where I least expected them. The most surprising might have been when I ordered green tea with sugar at a restaurant. After a pause, the waiter politely explained that one does not drink green tea with sugar. I responded that yes, I was aware of this custom, but I liked my tea sweet. My request was met with an even more courteous version of the same explanation: One does not drink green tea with sugar. While I understood, I told him, that the Japanese do not put sugar in their green tea, I would still like to put some in my green tea. Thus thwarted, the waiter took up the issue with the manager, and the two of them began a lengthy conversation. Finally, the manager came over to me and said, “I am very sorry. We do not have sugar.” Since I couldn’t have the green tea as I liked it, I changed my order to a cup of coffee, which the waiter soon brought over. Resting on the saucer were two packets of sugar.

My failed campaign for a cup of sweet green tea makes for an amusing story, but it also serves as shorthand for how views on choice vary by culture. From the American perspective, when a paying customer makes a reasonable request based on her personal preferences, she has every right to have those preferences met. From the perspective of the Japanese, however, the way I liked my tea was terribly inappropriate according to accepted cultural standards, and the waitstaff was simply trying to prevent me from making such an awful faux pas.

This story reminded me of a Jay Leno episode. Leno goes to a Cajun restaurant in New Orleans and orders his food. Once his food reaches his table, he commits the cardinal sin of asking for ketchup. When the outraged waiter replied in the negative, (an excessively bulked up looking) Leno promptly pulls out a large ketchup bottle from his outsized coat pocket and proceeds to smother his food with ketchup… with the aghast waiter looking on.

James Gatlin, after winning the 100m race at the Diamond League in Doha

American sprinter James Gatlin, who’s just coming off a doping-induced ban, talks about competing with the fastest man in the world.

Interviewer: Is Usain Bolt unbeatable?

Gatlin: It’s like you watching for weaknesses of your opponents in a game like football or basketball. You watch them for what great athletes they are and study them. Watching Bolt perform great feats is awe-inspiring and breathtaking. But he is still human and breathes the same air I breathe and takes the same two steps that I take to get to the line. Just going out there with confidence and giving it everything to get from this line to that line is what I’m working on.

 

Gatlin highlights a point that’s true across many sports. Sustained brilliance by a sportsperson (think Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Usain Bolt) always begins with an era of awe-inspiring performances that catapult them to the top (I call this “Phase 1 of domination”) followed by an extended period where their opponents stop trying (they’ve been bludgeoned into submission psychologically) – I call this “Phase 2 of domination”. Eventually, a few competitors start internalizing on “if HE can do it, why can’t I?” which leads to the most interesting “Phase 3 of domination” — a phase whose duration  depends both on the incumbent champion’s mettle and the quality of the challengers.

Khalil Gibran parc in Beirut

In Ambassador’s Journal, John Kenneth Galbraith writes about his 3-day layover in Beirut, enroute to India — where he would begin his tenure as US Ambassador to India.  Below are selected extracts from April 5,6,7 journal entries.

We arrived in Beirut about 7:30pm, were met by a formidable delegation from the Embassy and went to a pleasant dinner with Ambassador and Mrs. Robert McClintock. Lebanon looked much as before — partly Mediterranean and partly Oriental. There is much new building out of oil money. The currency is strong, the gold cover huge and there are lots of cars and tourists. After the troubles of two years ago, the political situation is stable with the top jobs carefully divided, in the manner of a New York political ticket, between the various religious claimants — Sunni and Shi’a Moslems and Christians. The Lebanese are the least temperamental of the Arabs — there is a story that at the outbreak of the Israeli war in 1948, they pulled back their army several miles since wars raise the danger of death by shooting. The Ambassador says this is not so.

…

By day, Beirut is busy, untidy and reminiscent of a half-finished city in Southern California. The sky is clear and the water outside our hotel is very blue. The people have an aspect of well-fed rascality which may not be entirely misleading.

Roman bridge over the Dog River in Beirut (Pic: courtesy michaeltotten.com)

A bright blue Mediterranean day and one of the most relaxed of recent memory. We did some shopping and then drove out along the coast road to the Dog River to see the old Roman bridge — of three light stone arches — and the inscriptions cut in the rocks. These inscriptions, cut by all the passing armies of history from Darius to the Free French, are in a narrow passage between the hills and the sea. The instinct to immortalize oneself by writing on a wall seems basic; excavations of the primeval privy no doubt prove the point. Actually, much of the romance has gone from the Dog River. The ancient road once wound along a narrow corniche. It was here, at the narrowest corner, that the armies shaved a space on the rock and carved their names. Even five years ago the place had sparse, barren and romantic aspect. Now a highway tunnel has been cut under the hill where it juts out to the coast, and future armies will write their names on the inside of an underpass.

Pic: courtesy jamiecarie.com

Years ago, during my days working at Yahoo, I had a manager (let’s call him “X”) who exhibited an interestingly annoying behavior. He would promptly respond to all my tactical emails but When it came to the less frequent (but potentially game-changing) missives of the Jerry Maguire mission statement kind, I was greeted with… silence. During one of our subsequent 1:1 meetings, X sheepishly admitted that since my strategy emails warranted focused attention, he would “mark” them for later processing.. and the ‘later time’ would never arrive.

As I introspected on my year of TechSangam blogging, I saw a striking parallel between X’s processing of tactical vs. strategic emails and my own decisions on which blog post would next be completed.

There are two reasons why some blog posts end up with a longer gestation period than others. Reason #1 (obvious one) is that the more interesting “today’s topic” tends to trump the ones in the Drafts folder. Reason #2 manifests itself less frequently though it’s more tragic. I’m talking about the “knock the socks off” feeling one gets after meeting some social entrepreneurs – either because the business model was incredibly powerful or the entrepreneur himself was highly inspiring or both.

Since I would want these stories to come out “just right” (or maybe “not wrong”), I would automatically allocate a higher time chunk for their completion. Add to this the constraint/pressure of needing to publish 4-5 posts per week, the easier posts get picked up (and finished) on most days perpetuating the procrastination cycle. And that’s why it’s a tragedy – the most news-worthy posts (according to my editorial judgement) get de-prioritized because of the “weekly post frequency” rule. I suppose there are advantages in the writer and editor being two separate people.

Here are just a few examples of protracted gestation periods…

• I first met Dr. Trilochan Sastry in Aug 2011 but it took 4 months before I completed The many lives of Trilochan Sastry – academic, social activist, social entrepreneur.
• I met V. Ravichandar in Oct 2011 but the corresponding post (A time to ISR) saw the light of day in Mar 2012.
• I met one of India’s most fascinating social entrepreneurs, Naandi Foundation’s Manoj Kumar, in late Aug 2011. I’m yet to complete that very interesting story.
• I met Samhita Academy‘s Aparna Goenka in late Oct 2011 but the post still languishes in “Drafts” folder. Recent developments on the Right To Education (RTE) front have increased the urgency so hopefully.. I’ll have this wrapped up before month-end.

An exception to this trend is Murali Vullaganti’s Rural Shores story — an inspiring social entrepreneur and an impressive business model but I managed to turn the post around with a mere 1-day gestation period.

(silent pledge to reduce gestation period of impactful posts)

Pic: courtesy Google Images/Pinterest.com

Haruki Murakami, famous novelist and marathon runner, this question in his memoir What I talk about when I talk about running.

Marathon runners well understand what I mean. We don’t really care whether we beat any other particular runner. World-class runners, of course, want to outdo their closest rivals, but for your average, everyday runner, individual rivalry isn’t a major issue. I’m sure there are garden-variety runners whose desire to beat a particular rival spurs them to train harder. But what happens if your rival, for whatever reason, drops out of the competition? Their motivation for running would disappear or at least diminish, and it’d be hard for them to remain runners for long.

Most ordinary runners are motivated by an individual goal, more than anything: namely, a time they want to beat. As long as he can beat that time, a runner will feel he’s accomplished what he set out to do. Even if he doesn’t break the time he’d hoped for, as long as he has the sense of satisfaction at having done his very best — and, possibly, having made some significant discovery about himself in the process — then that in itself is an accomplishment, a positive feeling he can carry over to the next race.

Murakami’s interpretation totally resonates with me… and my relationship with long distance running.

Later on in the book, after a blow-by-blow description of his first successful 100k ultra-marathon, following by a protracted period of “runner’s blues” from which he recovers, he has this to say:

‎”Competing against time isn’t important. What’s going to be much more meaningful to me is how much I can enjoy myself, whether I can finish twenty-six miles with a feeling of contentment. I’ll enjoy and value things that can’t be expressed in numbers, and I’ll grope for a feeling of pride that comes from a slightly different place.”

I’m not there yet… but someday hope to get there.

Pic: courtesy toonpool.com

In Ambassador’s Journal, John Kenneth Galbraith shares a Diplomacy 101 aphorism (“don’t do anything”) in his February 18, 1961 journal entry.

February 18-Washington-Cambridge

… (skipped several paragraphs) …

Thursday night we were guests of the Indian Embassy at The World of Appu, by Satyajit Ray. It needs cutting but is obviously a superior film. Afterward there was a pleasant party at the Embassy. Good food; quite good wine; very pleasant company. And many handsome women in handsome saris. Last night I went to a party for a visiting German delegation, an occasion of unrelieved tedium. Germans and Americans, one after another, made speeches of unbelievable awfulness. All were concerned with improving understanding by one country of the other. Leave each country to its own devices; treat the other’s ideas with dignity and respect, whether right or wrong. No one ever worries about relations with Switzerland which is why everyone has good relations with the Swiss. Start doing something about them, and this would mean that they needed improvement, ergo were bad. It was one of my greatest undelivered speeches.

Possibly the Presidential desk being referenced (Pic: courtesy masslive.com)

In Ambassador’s Journal, John Kenneth Galbraith writes about the origins of JFK’s presidential desk in his February 14, 1961 journal entry.

Yesterday the FBI invaded Cambridge. If my loyalty is imperfect, it will be one of the most dangerously delayed discoveries in modern history.

Meanwhile my diplomatic career continues to be subordinate to the price of hogs. I went to a long meeting last night at the Department of Agriculture, followed by one with Mike Feldman and Freeman this morning, followed by a lengthy session with the President.

… (skipping a paragraph on corn, pork and soybean prices) …

The President looked relaxed and rested. His new desk, made from the timbers of a sunken ship (H.M.S. Resolute *) is massive and elegant, and the office is beginning to look rather more agreeable. The bookshelves still contain the public papers of F.D.R. and the complete volumes and testimony of the Temporary National Economic Committee of the late thirties. Such was Ike’s reading — just possibly.

* The desk was presented to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria.

Haruki Murakami (Pic: courtesy operatic.wordpress.com)

On the way I passed a few other joggers, about an equal number of men and women. The energetic ones were zipping down the road, slicing through the air like they had robbers down their heels. Others, overweight, huffed and puffed, their eyes half-closed, shoulders slumped like this was the last thing in the world they wanted to be doing. They looked maybe a week ago their doctors had told them they have diabetes and warned them they had to start exercising. I’m somewhere in the middle.

This is how Haruki Murakami, famous novelist and marathon runner, describes himself in What I talk about when I talk about running. You realize it’s a self-effacing assessment only after you finish reading his memoir. It reminded me that I’ve long wanted to create a catalog of the different types of runners – a diverse group that’s somewhere in the middle. Here’s a partial list:

• 

  Pic: courtesy runnerimg.com

  The let-me-tell-you-everything-that-happened-last-week runner who is

• Definitely not the same as The Talking Runner (subject of next week’s post – The Talking Runner is a parallel to PG Wodeshouse’s Oldest Member and RK Narayan’s Talkative Man)
• The Loner Runner
• The listener-who-won’t-talk Runner
• The Chic Runner
• The I-run-so-I-can-eat-whatever-I-want Runner
• Very different from I-run-so-I-am-a-finicky-eater Runner
• The Group Runner
• The Social Media Runner (who shares details of every single confounding training run)
• The Social Runner (runs occasionally, rarely forgets to bring a camera and never misses the post-run breakfast)
• The Bottle Carrying Runner (whether it’s a 30k training run or a race, you’ll never catch this runner without his trusty water bottle)
• The Gear Toting Runner (iPod Nano, heart rate monitor, waist pouch laden with fluids, head and arm bands, shades and running cap, maybe even a running jacket)
• (And of course) The Barefoot Runner

What kind of runner am I? During my Chicago running days (a scenic route alongside Lake Michigan from Diversey Street to Navy Pier — sometimes even upto Balbo Street), I was a Loner Runner and always had the Walkman preset set to  93XRT (rock station). Water fountains at regular intervals meant I never needed to carry a bottle. As I trained for my first marathon (training routes were Sunnyvale and Los Altos roads), I shed the Walkman but remained a Loner Runner.

My last 4 years in Bangalore have been low on solo running and high on group running — probably the single biggest driver for my increased monthly mileage and increased race participation. However, m solo running roots are very much intact  – still quite comfortable with solo 30k+ runs. My gear toting waxed in my initial Bangalore years and is now on the wane — currently at Garmin, sweat band and bottle for 20k+ training runs; cap and Gu gels get added for the race. My Social Media runner persona was probably at its peak in 2010 (Facebook’ing all my long runs and tweeting just about every other training run). Thankfully, that persona has undergone significant attenuation.

On a somewhat related note, I was really happy to read about Bubba Watson winning this year’s Masters. I loved this quote from his post-win interview “The thing is, golf is not my everything.”  That’s exactly how I feel about my running these days. I’m really enjoying running, hope I’ll continue enjoying it for decades to come but… it’s not my everything.

So what kind of runner are you?

Pic: courtesy 123rf.com

This post has been in my Drafts folder for a whopping 20 months. I use ‘post’ loosely because when I picked it up today, it was just a collection of interesting story links and a provocative title. The original article that inspired this post was A Hindu America? – in no less a publication than National Catholic Weekly. The author’s (Francis Clooney) own inspiration was her friend’s article in Washington Post – A rich and strange metamorphosis: Global Hinduism. As is often my wont, I quote below the most interesting excerpts.

1. In her piece, Bernacki recollects Lisa Miller’s essay in Newsweek a few months ago, on how Americans are becoming Hindus ideologically: “[Lisa Miller] tells us that an astounding number of Americans now believe in reincarnation. This conceptual, indeed cosmological, importation from Hinduism is seeping indelibly into the American psyche. Even a percentage of self-identified Christians have little difficulty incorporating this Hindu notion. Similarly, the word and concept of ‘karma’ is so commonly parlayed in everyday conversation that its Hindu origins no longer even register, as the concept finds its way across wide ranges of socio-economic circles and in all sorts of milieus.” Biernacki speculates that Hinduism — Hinduisms — is uniquely able to be “glocal” — present across the globe, but yet still local in a multitude of particular identities. Alas: before our present era of over-centralization, the Catholic Church too excelled at being glocal!
2. In this sense, the future of Hinduism suggests a kind of opening to a global world in a way that sidesteps the vision of a one-world government or one-world ideology. It proposes instead a world model without hegemonic center, linked by a thread of cosmology, multiplicity instanced as network, a seamless interconnectivity that echoes a conceptual cosmology from Hinduism’s past into our own global and glocal future.”
3. If our neighbors are practicing yoga (even Christian yoga), meditating, visiting gurus, and enjoying the prospect of multiple deities and multiple births — then we have to bear down, and think more deeply about who we are and how we speak, act, live.
4. But no, it is not enough to broadcast our faith without listening, or to insist with open mouths and closed ears that Jesus is the way and that Christian faith is superior to religions such as Hinduism, when we — the Church — seems not understand Hinduism except in a most superficial way, and have no clue why Americans might embrace reincarnation.
5. So — to turn on its head the old notion that yoga is navel-gazing — we would do well to be more yogic, more Hindu — less into Catholic-navel-gazing, and more attentive to the very interesting spiritual cultures flourishing around us, and unafraid at a diversity that we cannot control yet that does nothing to harm the uniqueness of Jesus. Attentiveness will help us to see better what it means to be a follower of Jesus in the world we actually have, in the one life given to us.

Against the backdrop of the soul-searching of Catholics in America, surely the time has come to stop the conversions in India?

******

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