No Pill For This Chill

The pace of evolution of science is scary. Who would have thought that we would put a man on the moon? Who would have thought that something called the internet will change the way we think and do things? Hell, we have even figured out how to put a mop of hair back on Harsha Bhogle’s bald pate. There is virtually nothing that is exempt from the inexorable progress of Science – except, of course, air conditioning.

Air conditioning has been around for the past many decades, and one would expect that by now we would have got it nailed down to a point where one just has to think it and the optimum temperature would waft through a room in no time, right? Not even close!

Just yesterday, I was in a full day meeting. Small room, about 15 X 20 feet. As I was late, I plonked myself on the only available chair. Unfortunately, the A/C was positioned right across from where I sat. Within the hour, I was being hit by a blast of cold air to the point of distraction. I spent the next hour moving the chair close to the table and then backing away and then behind another chair to shield myself.

Finally, unable to bear the torture, I had to ask someone to help me. Life seemed a little better for a while, till I realized that I was beginning to sweat. The air had become stuffy and oppressive, while people at the other end of the table were now beginning to shift their chairs uneasily from the chill…

Soon enough, the oppressed lot at the other end made a demand for the remote and I was back to square one. Followed by the collective brainwave to switch the contraption off for a while. In ten minutes, the room was filled with CO2 and its miserable occupants were close to swooning. At which point we had lost the battle and just opened the windows. Now we had to conduct the meeting with our voices battling the constant honking from the traffic below. By the end of the day I was fully drained, while the contents of the actual meeting were still kind of blurry.

This is not just a small room problem. I have been in large ballrooms of hotels where I have either frozen to death or been fried to a crisp or sometimes even both in the course of a single meeting. The less said about flights and theatres, the better.

And I’ll never forget the time when I moved into a new office, some years ago. It is a very unsettling feeling when, in the middle of a Delhi winter, you have to enter your room and, rather than shed a layer of insulation, actually put on an additional one. Apparently, the problem was that my room was close to the compressor of the central A/C system, so if they made my room inhabitable, office rooms further away would meltdown. Finally, the problem was resolved – by sticking a few pieces of A4 paper on the ceiling to partially cover the vent and reduce the blast. There is no end to our capacity to innovate…

I have not been spared even in the cozy confines of my home. While things are ok when I drop off to sleep, by 2 am the room has shifted to a point that is on the same isotherm as Alaska. Back to good old manual intervention – through a sheer process of trial and error, I have perfected a very precise 27⁰ angle at which the door will need to be kept open to maintain the right balance. This angle, of course, has to change to change to 52⁰ during winter …

Why the hell should we buy a piece of equipment and then spend all our time intervening manually to achieve something that that equipment should have done in the first place??

It has become commonplace to derisively refer to people in ivory towers and air-conditioned rooms as being allegedly disconnected with real life. I’m not sure about ivory towers having never actually seen one, but I can tell you that those in air-conditioned rooms are in a position to observe all the cruelties of life play out real time, through the day, as they seek to achieve the purported comfort of the optimum temperature. They deserve our sympathy, not scorn.

Though I must also say that this phenomenon has its occasional upsides. For example, have you ever sat through a meeting to, for example, evolve the vision of the company? This is a meeting where employees obsess over existential questions like “Who are we and what do we do?”, “Do we want to be the most admired or the most respected company?” and “Do we want consumer delight or consumer ecstasy?”. Needless to mention, these meetings have the potential to last for about a month with no outcome in sight. The simple thing to do is to make lots of tea and coffee available, turn the A/C on full blast and insist that nobody leaves the room till the vision has been agreed upon. Nothing pushes people to conclude a meeting as much as bursting bladders and suddenly, an amazing ability to converge on a vision is on display.

On a more philosophical plane, I believe people go through three phases in their corporate careers and all of these phases can be observed in the seat position one takes in meetings. In the “Need to make maximum impact in minimum time” first phase, one jockeys for a position near the head of the table to be visible. In phase 2, as life’s harsh realities start setting in, the key determinant is arms-length access to the biscuit tray. In the final and battle hardened phase 3, it is all about observing where the A/C is and ensuring that one is away from the blast. Nothing else matters. Not even the biscuits.

Unfortunately, Science has ticked the A/C box and is now focused on random things like putting Man on Mars. To my knowledge, nobody is working on how to make this contraption actually do what its name signifies. Mentally, I’ve moved on. I’ve classified A/Cs under the head of “Things that do not do what the name claims”, much like Fairness Creams, Hair Growth Therapies and Weight Loss programs. It’s amazing, once you face up to it, how easily the mind adjusts to the limitations imposed by life. Talk of conditioning!

*****

Mugs, Labels and Memory Overload

Saturday afternoon. At the neighbourhood mall with family. Just passing time, at peace with things, soaking in the buzz around me. The state of contentment suddenly vaporized as I happened to make eye contact with a chap in a blue shirt. He was beginning to break out into a smile of recognition even as I realized that another mini crisis had just announced itself at the door. My brain was sending me high voltage alerts signaling that a known face was approaching but it was damned if it could feed me the name that goes with the face…

Happens to you too? You place a face but not the name? Or vice versa? Or neither!

The other day, I was waiting in the airport security check Q. The Q goes up then you make a U-turn and you go down, then you make another U-turn and you go up and so on. During the first pass, as I went up in one direction a familiar face that was going down the other broke into a huge grin and reached out for a handshake. And as you can guess, I’m blank.

How do you deal with the embarrassment that comes with failed memory? It appears almost rude, not to mention the feeling that you’ve let down the person at a very fundamental level. A vacuous look in the eye with eyebrows raised questioningly could easily lead to one of your friends becoming unfriended. On the other hand, a bluff remark runs the risk of an extended conversation, over exposure and being found out. A very trying situation.

Over time, I have perfected a nice blend of a semi-friendly smile along with a pre-occupied look. You don’t want to look blank, but equally you don’t want to appear too friendly and recollect later that this was the guy that shafted you during the internal audit fifteen years ago and then doing a slow burn over it. At this point, my usual strategy is to take recourse to the mobile phone. This is where I whip it out and whisper to the Familiar Face “Sorry, incoming call – just give me a sec…”, and start rambling to nobody on the other end. You just need to buy some time till the Face moves on and you buy yourself a couple of minutes before the next pass. Valuable minutes, when you can cajole the brain into doing some quick work at the till.

Frantic jogging of memory. Is this a face from college? An ex-colleague? Family? The brain is whirring but the connection is elusive. By this time, my phone has been put on silent (in case the damn thing rings as I pretend to be having a conversation). If memory continues to play truant by the next pass, the imaginary phone conversation continues. An apologetic look at the Face while continuously grunting into the phone is good enough to buy myself another couple of minutes. And so on. Sometimes it comes to you, sometimes it doesn’t.

In this case, it was made worse by the fact that the Familiar Face is attached to a very tenacious individual who is now waiting for me beyond the check in. Now I have to carry on a conversation with no clue as to who the man is. The ultimate cruelty of fate is on display that day, as I have colleagues with me and I’ll now have to do the introductions…

Maybe the manly thing to do would be to come clean and say “And you are????”, but that would probably wound the person, so in trying to be nice and mindful of their feelings, I usually set myself up for an extended session of torture.

I’ve seen a few friends playing these moments a little more aggressively. One of them has a fair amount of success with a simple line : “Hey, not sure if I have your card, may have misplaced it – do you have one on you?” It normally works, though not every time – once he was hit with “I am your mother’s cousin, why do you want my card?”

Another friend has a different approach. “So, who else have you met recently?” This is a pretty good one. Network effect. Some mutual friend or acquaintance or cousin or colleague is going to come up, aiding the frozen mass in the skull to come up with some linkages.

What complicates things is the matter of increasingly convoluted names these days. I actually think earlier generations had it easy. At least on the name front it was simple to wing it - between Rahul, Gupta, Banerjee and Suresh, we would have covered 75% of India’s population in the past. Nowadays, parents’ creativity is usually manifested during the christening of their offspring with names like Andaleeb and Lalantika and the like, with scant consideration to those of the human race that may chance to get acquainted with their loved ones.

Also, with an ageing - not that aged actually – let’s say, with a middle ageing network comes other complications. You don’t see someone for a few years and bang – the hair is all gone! Or has become fully grey. Or has become black again, with a full head of hair. And this propensity nowadays to experiment with facial hair frequently leads to further brain overload. No wonder one gets the feeling that the odds are stacked against us.

I have perplexed over the reasons for this failure to connect things in time. Some people moot the theory that memory becomes suspect as we age. What rot! If anything, as we grey, so do our grey cells. And the grey cells were grey to begin with, so any further greying should only help matters. No, the answer lies elsewhere.

I recently read somewhere that the maximum number of people that an individual can maintain a cognitive relationship with is 150. Hell, I wish I knew that earlier. When I started my Linkedin account, I was quite in awe of all the guys who had a hundred or even two hundred contacts. Through sheer persistence, I recorded my moment of joy some months back, when I reached the 500+ Club. Similarly with Facebook. And there is the prolific family with zillions of distant relatives. Not to mention all the places that I’ve studied in, worked at, people I’ve met casually, and the numbers just keep stacking up. Without realizing it, at some point I crossed critical mass and went beyond the point of redemption.  

There is some hope though - I think the younger generation is showing the path. Everyone below the age of 30 is Dude. For ages between 30 and 50, they go with the more flexible Chief – which, depending on the tone can cover a wide swathe across peers, friends and superiors. For all else, they use the more universal Sir. Who needs to remember all these names?

Anyway, where do I go from here? I’m not a big fan of mnemonics. It sounds too much like work. I can’t unwind the network. What’s done is done. As I see it, the only solution is to alter my appearance so dramatically that only people who know me really well would be able to recognize me and the chances that I would recognize such people is also proportionately high. So the next time you see a clean shaven, tonsured, dark glass sporting guy attired in fluorescent orange baggy pants who looks vaguely familiar, do come over and say Hi. But don’t feel too offended if I give you a semi-friendly smile accompanied by a pre-occupied look and whip out my mobile. Not your bad – it’s my memory playing truant once again…

***

The Tipping Point

Increasingly, I find myself pondering over some very existential issues. Sample these : Does God exist? How do I respond when my wife asks me if she has lost weight? How different would my life have been if I had Salman Khan’s looks? You get the drift…

But few questions have tied me up in knots as much as this one : What is an appropriate tip?

Seems like an innocuous question, right? However, when I look back honestly, I guess I’ve got it wrong most of the time. It is bewildering that such a simple thing should have so much complexity built into it?

Picture this in a restaurant –great meal, everyone happy and satiated, mood generally on a high, and then the bill arrives. I have no problem with the bill. It tells me what to pay and I pay. I knew what I was getting into, and while I normally experience a good deal of acidity when I look at the sum total value of all the choices we had made during the meal, it is usually not such a surprise. It is the tip where I am supposed to exercise discretion, and this is where the trouble starts.

I can feel my wife’s eyes hawkishly watching the tip amount. She feels that I am too lax with money and gets palpitations every time I open my wallet. Even during a business lunch, away from my wife’s prying eyes, I am not spared the scrutiny. I am in the investing business. And for some reason, people think that my personal habits reflect more about my investing style than anything else I say or do. Which means that if I leave generous tips around, my investors start to choke. How can a guy who doesn’t respect his own money respect other people’s money, they think?

On the other hand, I am cognizant of the expectations of the poor chap who served us. These guys live off the tips we leave, I’m told. What that basically means is that these fancy restaurants pay them minimum wages and feel they can sponge off us for the balance.

So, inevitably, between a generous tip and keeping the wife / business associate under control, it becomes a very difficult balancing act. It’s no wonder that quite a few people end up under-tipping. And you can identify them quite easily – they are the ones that refuse to make eye contact with the waiters as they leave the restaurant. I also know when I have over-tipped. At such times, when I look at the gleam in the waiter’s eye as he notices the tip amount, I do feel a small pang of anxiety. Did my wife notice the gleam? Have I set a bar, which I must now meet every time I show up in this restaurant? Ever tried to compensate for a large tip with a small one the next time? Take my advice – don’t even go there.  

And how do I approach it when I tip at a restaurant that I know I’m never going to come back to? Do I risk their contempt, secure in the knowledge that our paths will never cross again? Cheap thought, but kind of tempting, right?

Too many factors to be weighed before making a decision. And that’s why I feel this tipping business is yet another contributor to the general stress in our lives.

At least in a restaurant, there is a bill that creates some benchmark for the tip value. What is the right tip for a parking attendant? Or for the security guard who helps you park? The days of handing over coins are long gone, so it has to be a note. Does the minimum ten rupee note suffice? Does it equally suffice whether it is Park Sheraton or Saravana Bhavan? And in any case, the whole sequence of the tip is flawed, to my mind. If I could tip the valet generously before he parks my car, I am sure he will take great care. However, in all cases, we tip when we are leaving. This is where game theory comes into play. Surely, the valet would have made his assessment of the tip value when he saw me getting out of the car and handing over the keys. By the time he gets the car to me, if his assessment of me is that I’m a cheapo, he’s already dented the car and burnt the tires as he screeched to a halt, so how does my tip help things? And if by chance he overestimated my potential generosity, I have to go through the painful process of confronting the body language of a man in whose eyes I have fallen rather rapidly and entered cheapo territory.

And how does one deal with not having change to tip? It happens more often that I would like, and I’m damned if I’m going to tip the valet a hundred bucks for parking the car. It never helps when I explain that I’m out of change - the inevitable know-it-all, cynical smile that follows cuts me to the bone. So, usually, with a sad smile meant to indicate that life is not always fair but will level out in the long run, I just get in and move on, without a single glance in the rear view mirror.

It doesn’t end there. I face even more confusion on a continuous basis in regularly visited places like the gym or the club. Do I tip a small amount daily or a larger amount monthly or do I just give a mega tip during festivals? Each of these approaches has its pros and cons – these are not trivial decisions. I have actually left this one to market forces. Nowadays, when the valet smiles more than usual and goes out of his way to catch my eye, I know it is time for me to fork out a tip. Behind that smile is a nasty glint, and ignoring it is going to be at the peril of my car’s well being.

And then there was this time when I was checking into a very swank hotel. The front desk attendants were all females, and one of them took charge of walking me to my room. I was sweating. Now, this girl was quite a looker. Moreover, she was oozing sophistication from every pore and generally giving me quite the complex. All through the lift journey, while she was prattling in a very practiced manner of this and that, I was agonizing over just one thing – do I tip her or not? At these stratospheric levels of sophistication, would she take affront at being tipped? She looked quite the kind of person who was eminently capable of looking down her nose and refusing the tip with a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. Ugh – nightmare scenario. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want such a pretty thing to think of me as a cheapo. And then again, if I do tip, what is the right amount? An inadequate tip is probably worse than no tip and I’m firmly back in cheapo territory.

And so it goes. Why does such a simple thing as a tip add so much unnecessary complexity to an already complex life? I’m sure there is an answer out there – hell, I see a lot of people not breaking a sweat as the valet approaches or sporting a careless smile as the bill arrives. Obviously there are people who have cracked the code, and I sure wish someone would show me the path.

Any helpful tips, anyone?

*** 

Queueing Theory, Indian Style

India is apparently the hypertension capital of the world. Medical experts have identified the causes to be a combination of genetics, diet, obesity, thyroid dysfunction and what not. They are wrong. Even though I put the maximum possible distance between Biology and myself as early as class XI, I believe I have cracked this one. The singular cause for this epidemic in India can be tracked down to one word - the Queue. Or, in a letter, the Q.

For the sceptics who doubt my theory, here’s a demo - let’s take the simple example of my recent brush with air travel.

There is nothing more unearthly than waiting in a Q to get into an airport at 5 am. Human beings were not designed for this. Long, serpentine Qs. Everyone trying to slime ahead. The man behind me is inching his way forward and is now almost by my side. He is nonchalantly looking the other way, but his evil designs are clear. I’ve seen all this before, and seamlessly bring body language into play. I put my hands on my hips, stick my elbows out at right angles and create a barrier, while moving forward a couple of inches. Message delivered, or so I thought. However, during the nanosecond when I fumble with my wallet to fish out my photo ID, he forges ahead, flashes his ID and gets in ahead of me. There are few things in life that make you feel more like a loser than when someone jumps you unfairly in a Q. BP touching 130/90.

Reaching the check-in Q, I am confronted with some tough choices. Should I just trust my luck and get into the shortest Q or should I invest a couple of minutes in observing which Q is moving more rapidly? “Which Q to join” is a puzzle that ranks right up there with solving the Times crossword in 5 minutes. It’s also funny how people want the Q to move fast until they themselves reach the counter, at which point they are ready to discuss the world hunger problem with the check-in attendant. I am usually sweating at this point as I see the other Qs move faster. The only solace I derive is from the nervous man behind me, who is having an early breakfast of his nails. And suddenly from nowhere, a new counter is thrown open. Alas, I was not alert enough. All the passengers behind me rush to that one. The Nervous One actually checks in ahead of me with a triumphant grin! Aaaarghhh. Surely, this can be done better?! BP pushing 140/100.

Security check. Huge Q at all the X-ray machines. There is nothing more stupid than getting up at 4 am and missing the flight. Passengers at different stages of anxiety attacks queued up. And the X-ray machine inspector is humming a Hindi film song. Not one of the recent songs with pulsating beats and therefore capable of spurring him on to quick action, but one of the old Rafi lullabies. He is an oasis of calm in the bustling airport. Time stands still. The conveyor is not moving. He is looking at the ceiling, the floor, his colleagues, anywhere but the screen. And just as I finally get to the machine, a bunch of crew-members barge in and jump the Q. I make a mental note of their faces. If this is the crew on my flight, I’m going to ask for water every 5 minutes. Again, as I’m unloading my bag on the conveyor, the last and final call is announced for some other flight and another group of stragglers on that flight jump ahead. They are mumbling apologies outwardly but smirking inside, making a bad situation worse. Much gnashing of teeth. Heart rate leaps. BP leaps higher.

But nothing can match the process of Q formation when boarding is announced. It all starts with a few people generally hanging around near the boarding counter prior to the flight being announced. Once the announcement is made, everyone rushes in, and a curious phenomenon unfolds. The Q starts with something resembling a line. At about the tenth person, it branches into two Qs. And a few people down the line, into more branches, till the whole thing resembles the Ganges and its tributaries. New branches of the Q are constantly being formed. The Q is now constantly morphing in an amoebic fashion. Where does it begin? Where does it end? Chaos rules. Close to palpitations now…

The airport examples are only illustrative. Ever seen a traffic light where vehicles line up behind each other? And why does the Q at an elevator resemble a bunch of hockey players arrayed at the “D”, tensely waiting to convert the penalty corner? And don’t get me started on the Q at any Doctor’s clinic. You are at the mercy of the receptionist, who will typically botch up the sequence, leading to much argument, heartburn and angst – which is probably good for business anyway.

Someone was prescient when he or she named this thing the “Q”. It is easily the most complicated alphabetic form in the English alphabet and closely reflects the pattern of how lines form in India. I’ve traveled a fair bit in India and observed only two cases where I have seen Q’s form in a proper fashion. First, the Qs in Mumbai bus stops. Second, those in the wine shops in Kerala. Go figure!

It’s understandable that we should fume when we lose a few minutes because someone didn’t follow the Q etiquette. On the other hand, it’s bizarre that we should feel elated when we are able to similarly short circuit some part of the Q and save a few minutes. Any one from the outside would think that we are a nation of high achievers who cannot wait to get through the Q and do all kinds of important things. But insiders know that’s not the case. What Indians do with the 30 seconds they save by sliming through Q’s is anyone’s guess!

What all this means is that as you approach a Q, any Q, you cannot switch off and attain a state of yogic trance while you wait for the Q to automatically progress. You have to be constantly alert, brain whirring actively, looking for openings, ensuring others do not spot one, wondering whether we should move to the next Q, whether we can risk visiting the washroom and lose our place and so on. Any situation where you are making a crucial decision every 10 seconds is a sure shot recipe for stress. If your BP is anywhere lower than 160/110 when you get to the head of the Q, you are ahead of the game.

People measure India’s journey to becoming a developed nation through growth rates and social indices. Here’s my take. Some day, when we, asked to Q up, form a line (that’s ONE straight line), progress on a FIFO basis and not try jugaad of some kind to jump ahead, we can proudly claim to have arrived as a Developed nation. And a heart-healthy one!