Whither Sarcasm

"Apologies - there will be no further delays.  My cable technician has neared your home, and will be at your home in precisely 7 minutes" said the clipped military voice from the cable shop.  And typical of a person who values and measures time precisely, he hung up before I could ask him anything else.

I can understand if a person says "5 minutes" or "10 minutes" - it typically means in Egypt (as in India) anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours.  But the "7 minutes" had a ring of authenticity to it - nobody can be so precise unless they know for a fact that it is indeed going to happen in 7 minutes.

I waited.  And waited.  Finally he turned up almost an hour later.

After the repair man left, I called up the cable shop owner to give him a piece of my mind.

I (in my most sarcastic tone) : "Your cable guy finally came to my house in PRECISELY 52 minutes 37 seconds after your phone call".

Cable shop owner : "He came, did he?  Good.  Good night" and then he hung-up before I could slip in another word edgewise.

I am losing my faith in sarcasm.

Precision

There is something formidable about precision.  We all love Swiss watches, and we all love precision in our Market Research data.

I was visiting Muscat and was having dinner with a client, and another person called CS whose agency conducted the fieldwork for us in Oman.

During the course of the dinner, the client - who had a reputation for being a stickler for accuracy - said:

John (the client) : "it is unfortunate that none of you Market research agencies seem to be able to give me precise market shares of the leading lube brands ...."

I : "Yes, it is difficult to assess that unless we carry out a large quantitative study"

CS (field supplier): "Your market share is 93.56%"

Stunned silence at the table.  The client's mouth was agape.

The client : "From where did you get this figure, CS?".

CS : "I know that for a fact".

I : "John, there is some soup on your collar".

The change of topic helped.  But the client was silent for the rest of the dinner, raising his head from the plate only to dart quick suspicious glances at CS.

After the dinner I took CS aside.

I : "Where did you get that number from?"

CS : "The client's brand is everywhere - it is obviously the leader"

I : "Yes, we all know it is the leader, but where did you get that number of 93.56% from?"

CS : "What is the problem? That is just a number to indicate that the client brand is the market leader.  I have seen lots of you researchers presenting such kind of numbers to clients in their presentations, and clients don't question those numbers"

I : "You cannot make up a random number like that.  We researchers present such kind of numbers only after we carry out fieldwork".

CS  : "Yes, and it is I who carries out all your fieldwork".

The conversation was getting into dangerous territory, and I thought it is better to beat a hasty retreat than probe into the implications of that statement.

There was one client though who seemed to have forever lost his taste for precision.

Egypt Elections - Tail Piece

Tail Piece 1

I love pulling my driver Mehmood's  leg - and knowing that Mehmood is quite religious, I put on a straight face and told him that I am ordering him to vote for Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate.  He reluctantly refused, and said that he will be voting for Fatouh - an independent candidate who is slightly more liberal compared to the orthodox and bearded Morsi.

He then turns to me, and tells me with a straight face : "If Morsi comes to power, all of us will have to take on 4 wives".

And after a very pregnant pause he adds: "I don't think I can afford 4 wives."

1st class Egyptian humour.

Tail Piece 2

I went to the hair cutting saloon today to trim my hair.  After he finished cutting my hair, the barber politely asked me whether I would like a shave (I had a 3 day stubble owing to the long Election weekend).

I thought I will practice my Egyptian humour on him, and told him "No thanks - I am now following in the footsteps of Morsi and am growing a beard", and expected him to smile.

Too late - I realised I had put both feet into my mouth. The room suddenly turned very quiet, and all the 4 barbers looked at me with a very somber expression.

Oh oh - with Morsi topping the 1st round elections, the fear that Egypt might soon turn into a country of bearded men must be causing deep agony in all the hair cutting saloons in the country.

Egypt Elections & After

So the results of the 1st round of the Egypt Presidential elections are out.  The 2 final contestants for the final run-off round are Ahmad Shafiq and Mohamed Morsy.  Many Egyptians perceive Shafik as linked to the old regime - he has been campaigning on the platform of order and stability. The other candidate Morsi - a Muslim Brotherhood candidate - is expected by many secular minded Egyptians to bring about a religious flavour to the government - thereby possibly putting at risk the secular nature of Egyptian society.

Hence for that reason I could not see too much of happiness on display on Cairo streets - Egyptians will now be forced to choose between the 2 extremes, a situation that could only favour Morsi who has a strong party machine working for him.

For a person coming from a chaotic democracy like India, this still seems like a good situation to be in.  Unlike in India, the Egypt Presidential system will not bring about the kind of paralysis and logjam that characterises Indian democracy.  I am sure whoever wins the elections will follow pragmatic policies and work towards strengthening law and order, and putting Egypt economy back into the growth path.

Fingering Techniques for playing Harmonium

Have uploaded a video on Youtube which is my perspective on how to practise the right fingering technique for playing the harmonium.

This is purely an Amateur's perspective on how to add beauty to the playing of the harmonium by using the correct fingering technique. Beauty can be added by using adjacent keys/tones that are not part of the original Raag - but the fingering has to be light and subtle, otherwise it risks ruining the Raag. 

Needless to say it requires lots of practice before it can be used in front of an audience

Palitana Reeds for my Harmonium

I bought my harmonium a few years ago off-the-shelf  from a music store in Bangalore. I was in a hurry, and selected my harmonium in a matter of 10 minutes.  All I checked was whether the harmonium had a good finish, the wood looked good, the sound came out loud and clear, and the keys worked smoothly.

Later I realised that I had not checked the critical component of a harmonium - the brass reeds.  The reeds in my harmonium were "Punjabi" reeds - and because they were of inferior quality, they started going off-tune quickly, and therefore required frequent tuning.  Tuning harmonium reeds is a specialised skill, and done best by a skilled artisan using his ears as the guide (rather than any instrument) - so this became a problem to me as I had to lug my harmonium to India every time any of the reeds went off-tune.

I later found that the best quality reeds were made in Germany - but that German reeds are no longer available since a few decades as harmoniums have gone out of fashion in the West.  To understand how German reeds sound like, and why German reeds are the best, read these posts Why every Harmonium sounds different - C Sharp Tuning and Custom-Made Triple Reed Harmonium.

Among Indian makes, the reeds made in Palitana - a small town in Gujarat - were supposed to be the best.  I wanted to replace the reeds with Palitana reeds - but the problem is that Palitana reeds are in limited supply, and there is a long waiting list. After a great deal of follow-ups (thanks to my dear wife) the reeds were finally procured from the MohanLal company and installed into my harmonium at the Bombay Harmonium Works, Mangalore.

The results are fantastic - the sound is much more mellow and beautiful, and it is a real pleasure playing it and listening to the sound.  The sound will become even better over time as the new reeds gradually "open up" and lose their stiffness with the frequent playing of the instrument.  And because the reeds are made of better quality material, hopefully the reeds will require less frequent tuning.

To hear how my harmonium sounds like now, watch this
.

I am sure this harmonium now will serve me in good stead for a long time to come

The Challenging 40's

One of the most difficult life-stages is when a person gets into his 40s. Even if that person has maintained himself well, the body starts to creak reminding him that he is a mortal.

On the career front he is typically at the top-most layer that he will ever rise up to - any further rise in the organisational hierarchy will be marginal and merely designation adjustments or role swaps, rather than substantive responsibility changes.

He also realises that he has put behind him more years in his career than he will in the future.

And around him he might also see quite a few fallen heroes within the organisation - heroes he may have worshipped and role-modelled a decade ago, but who suddenly seem to have stagnated and gone to pieces.  These ex-heroes would typically be in their late 40s or 50s - these would have been the high-fliers a few years ago, guys with a lot of promise and possible CEO material - but who mysteriously seem to have lost their way.

And our man will start wondering what went wrong with these ex-heroes, and will dread whether a similar fate will befell him too some day.

In today's fast-track growth era it is very easy for a bright ambitious person to learn all that is there to learn in his industry by the time he is in his 30s.  He then starts picking up various fine-tuning soft-skills - but these skills are acquired gradually.  No measurable step changes - which is pretty disconcerting for our ambitious go-getter.  Since his whole life revolves around this particular industry or skill area he starts feeling a distinct sense of what the French very elegantly call ennui - the result is he loses his sense of purpose.  At this stage that person either takes premature retirement, becomes an entrepreneur and gets into something totally new.  Or he starts going to pieces by passively trying to hold on to his job, and passing his time = fallen hero.

Which is why it is critical that every individual entering this life phase to parallely takes up a "second" passion or career which is totally unrelated to what he does in office.  This could be learning to paint, helping out an NGO over weekends, teaching, learning golf or to play a musical instrument - anything that has a bigger purpose and will challenge the individual to once again exercise his learning skills in a totally new arena.  Most of the best brains in any sphere continued to be productive and useful in their main career, because they consciously developed a 2nd passion which added the required zest and more enduring purpose to their life.