Are Indians patriotic ?

Today is Republic Day in India. Whilst everybody in India is aware that today is 26th January and a holiday missed this year, because its a Sunday, not many know what exactly we are celebrating.

In fact my daughter Freia sent me a link that conducted a survey amongst a few sample youth in the 2 major cities of Mumbai and Delhi on basic questions relating to the country and as is to be expected nit many knew the answer. Have a look.

Its my opinion that this is not something of major concern. I'm reasonably certain that similar surveys conducted across the world on similar lines is likely to yield very similar results. In fact similar questions have yielded similar results in the US on clips aired on late night shows around events like the US Independence day.

The more relevant question in my mind is whether a nation's people are patriotic or at the very least proud to be citizens of their country.

This is an area of concern. I must clarify that there's nothing scientific about my conclusions and that these are based on limited interactions with people across countries and my interpretation of these encounters. It seems to me that whilst the Americans are proud to be Americans, we are not nearly as proud to be Indians.

If we as Indians are able to somehow inspire our youth to be as proud to be Indian as the Americans are proud to be American, I believe that this could lead to major change and growth, both economic and political.

The question that this raises is "What's the connection ?". Whilst I'm sure that historians and economists have very good reasons for this co-relation I guess the simple answer is one of self confidence. Just as when an individual feels good about something, he begins doing well, my guess is that is applies equally to larger institutions including countries.

And so, here's wishing you'll a Happy Republic Day, with this parting thought. Lets make a difference. With what we say. And what we do.

Superwoman

Recently my kids made Ivy and me watch a YouTube video. They swore that it was exactly like us. The video made us smile and each of us agreed that whilst our own description was a little off, the other was pretty close.

I guess the greatest humor is when the artist is able to show a mirror. Superwoman does a great job. Here are my favorite 4.

Enjoy !

10 To Do's for 2014

I wanted to write a blog on my thoughts of my take on the defining moments of 2014. It then occurred to me that maybe we should start predicting and start doing. So here's my list of 10 things you should try in 2014. I definitely intend to, Try, that is.

I wasn't able to objectively attribute importance, since I feel they all matter. So have taken the easy way out. And put them in alphabetical order.

1. Capture
Photograph and capture life's moments. Create your own memories. At least once a week.

2. Exercise
Keep moving. Walk, run or whatever you like. Spend at least 3 hours a week.

3. Family
Spend time with your family. Parents. Kids. And most important spouse. Talk to them. Tell them you love them. When you can. You never know if you'll ever get another chance.

4. Learn
Learn something you don't know. Cooking. Cycling. Scuba Diving...

5. Nothing
Spend at least an hour a week doing nothing. Its as important as doing all the important stuff. And best of all, its easy.

6. Participate
At home. At work. In your community. In simple ways. Like voting. Giving an opinion. Making a contribution.

7. Read
Daily : An article
Weekly : An essay
Monthly : A book

8. Risk
Take risks. That's what makes life exciting. Do at least 1 thing that if you were sensible, you wouldn't.

9. Smile
It improves your face value. It also makes a big difference. To the other person. And in turn to you. You can do it anytime. On the street. At your work. On the phone.

10. Write
At least once a week. And this is my writing for this week.

Serendipity

2 days ago on Friday morning as I woke up, I was looking forward to spending a long weekend with Reia, Freia and Ivy at home. The previous evening a snow day emergency had been declared in the Tri-State (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut), as a blizzard moving towards the area was scheduled to hit during the night and leave snowed in towns and roads before moving on further North towards the Boston area.

Looking out, I could see that the blizzard had hit and the snow was piled thick wherever you looked. Making myself a cup of tea, I started checking my mail. A mail from an important client caught my eye, and was short and sweet. When can you come to India/ Need to meet. I decided to mail him later and check a convenient time when the phone rang. It was the client. Same question. My answer. When do you want me to come. When the response was asap, I was like, okay, will be there by Wednesday.

As this conversation was happening, I was thinking to myself, whether I could leave today and reach India by Saturday. My brother Don and Frank were already in India to attend the Arangetram (A Dance Initiation) of our niece Simran. This is an important function and I couldn't be there as I had just returned from India a couple of weeks ago. Now that there seemed to be an opportunity, I wanted to try.

I had to first see if Ivy and the kids would be okay, considering that Ivy was visiting and I had already spent a large part of the visit in India. She's scheduled to go back in less than a week. The day after I get back, if I make it, I was feeling a little guilty and was making an effort to tell them that this was completely unexpected and not planned. That's when Freia said, its "Serendipity". I had no idea at what that meant and so looked it up and it was a perfect description of the events unfolding. My family has always been supportive, and this time too, not only were they okay, they actively participated in trying to make things happen.

There were 2 major hurdles. To make it I had to leave in the next few hours. It wasn't going to be easy to get to the airport. More important would I be able to get tickets and even if I did, would the flight take off, as there were  1000's of flights that were being cancelled.

Started checking for tickets and they were obnoxiously expensive. Tried several airline as well as travel sites. No luck. On 2 occasions I found reasonably priced tickets and on clicking buy, the ticket was no longer available and the next available ticket was priced twice as much. Finally tried Kayak a second time. This time an Air-India ticket miraculously appeared that was a direct non-stop flight to Mumbai and was very reasonably priced. And I was able to do the booking on Kayak itself, which seemed to be a new feature, but the fulfillment was by Priceline.

The only problem was that it was a 4 p.m. flight and I had to leave in the next hour or so, More important how do I get to the airport. I decide to try my luck and called my colleague Tony. In a strange twist of events, his regular car was at the shop, and they had loaned him a multipurpose 4 wheel drive. And he was happy to help get rid of me, so he had a few days of peace.

All went well. I made it to the airport, the flight took off on time and I landed in India a full 20 hours before the event. Today's event. Strangely enough several people knew I was going to come. They obviously knew something I didn't.

The Arangetram is an individual dancing performance and Simran was awesome. She danced flawlessly and  her dance guru who was part of the background music and vocals couldn't stop smiling. I was able to do a live broadcast via Skype so that Reia who Simran would have liked to have attended instead of me, as well as Freia and Ivy could watch.

Unfortunately, the performance is not available online. Yet. I'll give a link as soon as its available. And its something that every person should watch. The end result of 8+ years of commitment and dedication all summarized in under 2 hours.