A magical wedding in Bali - Day 1 (June 4, 2012)

me with John and team, the father of the bride and team that pulled off the wedding 

I love attending weddings. And there are some that remain in your memory forever. And the wedding of Elora and Rajiv is one such occasion. I arrived in Bali on the afternoon of June 4th and drove to my hotel “Kertiyasa bungalow” in the village of Nyuh Kuning in Ubud. I walked into a two story small bungalow with a living room downstairs and a bedroom and washroom upstairs. The shower is outdoors nestled in the small backyard that opens from the living room. I settled in, unpacked, took a shower and got ready in my sari for the “sari and sarong evening”.

Bamboo Indah, where the first night dinner was hosted 

Women from around the world – US, UK, France, Canada, India, Indonesia – all wore sarees and gathered at the Bamboo Indah, which is a wonderful resort run by Elora’s family. The common area is all built out of wood and mud and it was decorated with hanging garlands of bright yellow chrysanthemums. After a grand feast, we settled down on large cushions on the floor to enjoy the sangeet. Rajiv’s brother, Ranjith, is an amazing singer.  He and Elora’s family put together a song for them titled “Full moon party” that chronicled the lives of Elora and Rajiv and made fun of how they met in a yoga class. then her sisters sang “Hey baby I think I want to marry you” by Bruno Mars and then other family members sang, did bollywood dance and then all of us went to the lake front and lit these lanterns and let them float in the sky.  It was really magical to see the night sky lit up with the lanterns. I made a wish as I let go of my lantern and watched it till it became a speck and disappeared into the night sky. The dark night sky was lit up with full moon, which had floating lanterns as fleeing company. 

me with Shilo and John - INK curator, Fellow and speaker ... don't we make a great team? 

Elora, the bride with the magical marigolds 

All pictures by Shilo Shiv Suleman

The Verdict for Rajat Gupta

Rajat Gupta 

When I read that Rajat Gupta was convicted for 25 years in prison, I had mixed emotions – sad, upset, frustrated. When I was at American India Foundation (AIF), Rajat was the co-chair. , and he was always generous, elegant and affectionate. He was the first Indian to break the professional barriers to make it to being the head of McKinsey. He was a great connector of ideas and people. He came up with the ideas, brought together people who had the resources and time to support the ideas, and let them take the center stage to turn the ideas into action. He was the driving force in making both AIF and ISB world class organizations. I am not his family nor would I be listed as one of his close friends but at work, I felt that he was always fair and made sure that we each got our time in the spotlight. He never imposed his ideas but discussed them until everyone was on board.

I still remember attending a dinner party at ISB in Hyderabad while it was under construction. The open quad area with the strong breeze was almost magical. He was like a proud father that night, as he walked us around the campus and showed us where the faculty quarters would be, where the student housing was coming up. He knew every inch of the project in the utmost detail. In fact, one of my friends commented that Rajat could have bought a lot of land around ISB area knowing that the prices would go up when ISB is completed, but he did not do it because she surmised that he was very ethical.

It was not just me but if we go back in time, everyone who met Rajat was impressed with his commitment to everything he took on. They say that some people can fool some people some times, but no one can fool all the people all the time. So, Rajat could not have fooled all of us with his genuineness. He was and I am sure continues to be a very affectionate person.

What made someone like Rajat then participate in insider trading, which is a serious offense? Whether we leak information to a friend or family, it is a serious crime. Was it because he was constantly surrounded by financial hotshots ,who showed off their private planes and multiple mansions so he felt that he needed one too? Did he feel really bad to say “No” to the trading requests of a friend? No one knows the precise reason but there was some external pressure or an extra desire that caused this slip in his judgment. 

Here is what I learned from this episode. If someone as brilliant as Rajat, as nice as him could have this slip, any of us could have it as well. And if the root cause of this slip was perhaps money - then we all need to remember that no matter how rich we are, there is someone richer. If I have a small home, someone could have a mansion and when I have a mansion, someone could have a private plane, and when I have that as well, someone could have a private island. There is no end to what one can materially possess. Pretty soon our definition of what is a “basic” need could change, and having a private jet, not just flying first class, becomes essential to our existence. That is when we tread the slippery slope of error in our judgment.

I realize that it is important to surround myself with friends who live like I do and are happy with their lives while I also celebrate the mansions of my other friends without having a need to own one myself. I also realize the need to surround myself with people who not only support me on the way up but also warn me if I begin to slip. It is important to hang on to those who might not be our most pleasant friends but are the most truthful ones. The more successful we become, the more important it is to hang on to those friendships that started when we were a nobody and friends who have a strong integrity toward what they do almost to a fault. 

I am sad for Rajat because his legacy is seen as that one moment of misjudgment and not his decades of service. I am sad because he did not have that someone who could have warned him of this consequence.

As for Rajat, I feel that the right question is not “How could he?” but it is “How do I not?”

I revel in the praises that I receive, love the little luxuries that life can offer me but I grow because of the ruthless criticism I receive when I make a mistake. And I hang on to those friends and family members who are not afraid to be the bad guys momentarily because they do a world of good to me in the long haul. 


(Picture from Wikimedia Commons)

The hidden promise of “Till death do us part”

I met him 21 years ago at a wedding in California. He was studying in California and his father from Bombay asked him to attend this wedding to meet potential brides. As an act of defiance, he showed up with three girls - one Indian, one Chinese and one White American as his dates to this traditional wedding in Thousand Oaks, California. I got talking to all of them and over the years we became friends. It so happened that he fell in love with one of the women who he showed up with and engaged to her six months later and married two months after that. In a way, I was with them from their very first meeting. Two people from two different cultures thrown together by a prank became life partners. He -  a smart, driven entrepreneur; she - an artist and a life long student. I visited their home filled with cats, dogs, rabbits and backyard filled with chickens, ponies, mules and many other moving creatures. They both loved nature and animals. I witnessed years of their life together with a string of dis-jointed incidents – news of their pit bull jumping the fence and landing in the next door yard; walking through their backyard in the early hours picking ingredients for breakfast – fresh eggs from the cage, tomatoes and green chilies from the garden; having a business meeting with him in the living room while she carved a horse head at the tail of a pencil to give as a gift to me, both of them talking to me on the phone as fire was engulfing most of their neighborhood telling me that they were being evacuated and the most recent one where we all agreed to meet in my next trip to US. There are so many moments small and big that mark our friendship.   

J and S... 

I meander through this memory lane today because of an email I received from him. It was a lengthy description of what happened to her in the last few weeks. I learnt of her having a stroke, of rushing her to the hospital where she told him that she loved him and that he should feed all her animals regularly even though she was in the hospital after which she slipped into a coma. When she woke up, she was totally paralyzed communicating only through batting of her eyelids. She was deteriorating fast and they had to make a decision about putting her on a feeding tube. She has always been a very shy, private person who was happy with her family and pets and I was one of his few friends that she grew close to … perhaps because she saw me as part of their first meeting. She was fiercely independent, incredibly simple, she created a home where she blended in with her animals and did not demand much from anyone else. She, who nurtured countless animals lay herself a wounded one and wanted to go the same way she would let her favourite horse go were it to be incapacitated. True to her nature, the same rule for animals had to be the rule for her. She communicated with the batting of her eyelids that she did not want to be kept alive. He held her hand as she breathed her last on her own terms. 

This incident made me think of love in a whole new way. The worse nightmare of any parent is to lose their child. And for a mother to fight to have her child die says something of the condition of the child. I thought of her parents, of him, of her siblings fighting to let her die. There are stories of people who survived her condition and lead their lives where someone has to take care of them round the clock. What is the effect on those who take care of them?  And for how long can they take care of them? If they are kept in institutions, what is the level of care that they receive?  Should they have tried for a few years and then let her go?  Should he and the mother have dedicated the rest of their lives to take care of her?  Should they have dissuaded her from her wish?  There are no right answers. And no one knows the details of agreements / arguments a couple might have within the confines of their private lives. All I know is that they both were in love for the 20 plus years and she gave an indication that she did not want to live. And they did everything they could to grant her that wish. 

And now, when I think of love, I also think of letting go. For most of us love is the celebration, a feeling of the living but love is also the end. As I bid farewell to her, I think of the agony that she went through in those last days. I am sure that there was some longing to live, to be with loved ones, some survival instinct working hard but her pride not to be dependent on anyone won over all that. Finally, her wish to live fully or not all won any other natural instinct. She remains in my memory as a quietly vibrant soul who built a small world around her of her family, pets and a few friends and I can still see her fingers carve horses of all sizes out of every possible material. 

Most importantly, like she did, I have to let my husband and family know what to do if I were to be a vegetable. It is not fair to toss that responsibility on them who would always feel guilty for pulling the plug but would be fulfilling my instructions if I made them clear. Death is imminent but death with dignity is the dream of every human being. As he wrote to me, he said that he did not want her to die but he wanted to save her from life worse than death. And that was the agreement in their marriage. Her last journey that started with a fall at 4:30pm on May 11^th, filled with major battles with doctors, priests, medical boards, ended the way she silently communicated, at 9.02pm on May 27^th. Memorial day that commemorates those who died saving their country added another veteran to the list… one who died fighting for her dignity.

Julie with her cat 

Bicycle Stop

I am always amazed by the inventions that surround us all day. And if we don’t look carefully, we miss them. I was car pooling with my colleague Anson and our car stopped at a traffic light. Keeping us company at the traffic light were buses, cars, bicycles, scooters, motor cycles – moving vehicles of all sizes and shapes. To the right of our car was a bicycle and Anson pointed out to a small invention that we thought was very clever.

To stop a bicycle, the cyclist has to apply break with the hand and lean the toe on the ground to stop the bike. When it is time to go, he would lift his foot off the ground and pedal away. The person next to us created this small foot rest attached to the break so that he could rest his feet while he also stopped the bike. Instead of dangling his leg onto the ground, he could rest it on the foot rest that also acted as a break and the other leg could still rest on the pedal. This simple invention that would give a tad more comfort stood out to as the most cool thing among all the vehicles that surrounded us. Once the light changed to green, all he had to do was take one foot off the foot rest and pedal forward!  Pretty cool, huh!

Cyclist with his foot resting on the foot rest

The foot rest attachment on the bicycle

Walk in the park

I was staying with a friend in GK 2 and went for my usual morning walk. Nestled among groups of homes, GK2 has small parks where people come to walk, jog, do yoga and enjoy the nature. The path is narrow, can hold barely two people walking together leaving no room for anyone else to pass. I went there early enough that there weren’t too many people.  There was a tall, bearded man walking in front of me and a couple of ladies far behind. The man and I were walking at almost the same pace. With him a few steps ahead of me, we had a comfortable  distance between us making it easy for us to share the same path. In the next round, I saw this man who was walking at a fast pace earlier, walk at a very slow pace giving company to an old sardar man. In a pair of beige shorts, stripe shirt, pagdi and a walking stick, the old man was frail and yet fit. Somehow, there was a dignity in his slightly hunched back and strength in his shuffling feet. They were so slow that I had to ask them to excuse me to pass them.  As there was no room to pass, both men stepped aside letting me pass and I touched the old man gently on his hand apologizing.

That slight touch on the wrinkled skin and the grin on the man’s face as he said “it’s ok” suddenly transported me back in time to when my dad visited me in Portland, Oregon. I was training for the Portland Marathon and had to run at least for an hour each day as part of training. My dad was visiting me and wanted to come on the morning runs with me.  He would walk slowly … much like the older gentleman in the park for a while and retrace his steps back to the car and would wait in the car reading the morning paper or writing his diary. I had a tight schedule and had only that limited time in the morning to run and I had to cram as much into it as possible. It was this kind of focus that got me through the training, a tough work schedule and prepared me for the marathon. I would often feel bad that he had to sit in the car for so long till I got back. I would ask him to walk close by to our home so that he could relax at home till I got back. He said that he did not mind it and I did not push it too much either. 

As I passed the older gentleman and the younger man who is walking at a much slower pace now, I thought of my father and wondered if I should have slowed down a bit and walked with him. I always knew but did not want to acknowledge  - that my father accompanied me at every opportunity often at great lengths of discomfort to him just to maximize his time with me.   So, was it OK for me to speed or should I have been more like this young man who was sacrificing his own cardio vascular workout to walk with an older man?

In India, most often, the children adjust to the adult’s pace. I see youngsters choosing careers they hate because their parents asked them to do so, marrying partners they do not even know because they trust their parents’ choice, giving up on the privacy as they choose to be part of joint families. And in U.S, we were taught to be totally self reliant, make choices and bear the consequences. We expected out parents to keep their own pace while we kept ours.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

And in each case, the pay offs are huge in their own way. It is because of that focus that I had, I could train for a marathon, succeed at a very demanding job and spend some time with my dad. That focus allowed me to have the monetary flexibility to have my father come to America, travel around the country seeing places that he always wanted to see and enjoy being with me. It allowed me to grow and learn in ways I never imagined.  It allowed me to take risks, fail, get up again and succeed through my failures.

In India, because of the family support that is available in a joint family, one does not have to worry about child rearing, house hold work etc.,  I have seen people who have set aside their personal passion and followed the family business to grow it bigger and then return to pursue their passion later in life.  In each case, the rules are clear and the consequences are well mapped.

It is when we try to translate each culture from the lens of the other culture that the meaning goes awry. And I have a curious split personality that can demonstrate this point.

If I see myself speeding around while letting my dad saunter slowly, I feel terrible.  I feel as though I was a heartless person. But then, I had to earn money to support myself, drive, cook, clean, shop for groceries, do the laundry, take the clothes for dry cleaning, take the car for a wash, oil change, maintenance and keep some time for my personal passions, be it running or rock climbing or river rafting or reading. Since athletics did not come naturally to me, I had to give it a lot more time than an average American colleague of mine .. just to keep pace, let alone win any race. And that WAS the right thing to at that time. And my father knew this. Since he went to school in America, he knew the pace, the demands and he adjusted to my pace allowing me to succeed.

When I see the young man in the park walking slowly with the old man, I could get irritated with the slow pace, of the hindrance to others who may be walking faster; I could feel sorry for the young man because the effect of his cardiovascular exercise has considerably reduced because he had to walk with the old man. And IF I did not see the fast pace of the young man earlier, there is even a danger of me assuming that all Indians are slow, young or old.  If I did not understand that this was a choice that the young man was making out of his own will, I could even assume that this is a repressive country, which makes people do things that they don’t really want to do.   

I am so glad that I had the opportunity to experience both cultures so that I organized my life to fit a marathon and yet spent time with my dad when he was in the hospital, when he needed me most. I learnt how to keep personal priorities aside to achieve goals at hand and I also learnt how to slow down while. And most importantly, I learnt not to judge from my own personal lens but make the best of both cultures who have a great deal to offer. One of the parting advices my dad gave was never to be guilty of any past actions. He said that no matter what I did, he always knew that I loved him. Even when I left him behind on the trail, he was always with me and he knew it.

Trains and More...

the locomotive parked at San Locomotive 

Travel by train is magic for me. I have experienced everything from unreserved ladies compartment to two tier A/C to first class. Regardless of the class of travel, I find myself transported to another world zipping by small towns, street vendors and bear witness to lives of strangers. A mother combing her daughter’s hair sitting on the door step, children playing in the pond while washing buffaloes, farmers tilling the field or chilling under the tree, various modes of transportation stopped at the railway crossing as we speed by – I can spend hours looking at these fast moving scenes and make up stories. My relationship with trains has always been in the journey and in the physical compartment. 

A few weeks ago, right here in Whitefield, Bangalore, I had an opportunity to witness the science behind the locomotive that actually pulls the train. Across the road from Taj Vivanta and ITPL, where thousands of people go to work in the tech sector, there is a large sign that says San Locomotives with a live locomotive parked by the gate. I learnt of a different kind of technology brewing behind those gates. Most of the railway business is in transporting goods. Many large power plants, stone quarries etc have miles of train tracks inside the premises to move the goods back and forth. The Indian railways do not want to get into the business of moving goods for the company. The goods train drops off the large supplies at the gate of the company and leaves it to the company to handle the movement within their premises. And that’s where San locomotives comes into play. They make the locomotives that pull the goods. And there is plenty of technology in the way the locomotives are made.  For example, the housing (metal covering) that houses the engines used to take a person working for 8-10 shifts to make one housing. Today, they have machines that make it in two hours.  Another invention at San is the two engine locomotive. There are many instances, where the train could go empty to the quarry and come back filled with coal, or it could take equipment to power plant and come back empty. In such cases, the locomotive could operate on one engine when it is goes empty and turn on both the engines when it needs to pull more weight. The invention that got me most excited was what I call “ambulance on track”. Many times, accidents occur in very remote places and it might not be possible for vehicles to get there for rescue. They have created a compartment fitted with all first aid kits including an operating theatre with engine built in the underside of the compartment so that it can go easily to the accident site on the train tracks and help people. Just imagine having these available as mobile clinics to go to remote villages and towns to treat people on an on-going basis. We have train tracks going through areas where there are no roads and products like this could be of great help. 

The barracks from second world war in the premise 

Jackfruit trees

It was so refreshing to step away from the traditional definition of technology of gadgets and gizmos and go to a new world of technology. And yet, a bit of greenery and history prevails. On the premises, the barracks from second world war where prisoners of war were kept are still in tact. The premises is full of large trees – some bearing humongous jack fruit while the others spreading their shade.








Thanks to my friends Anna and Milind, who own the place (or “guardians” of the place as they say), it was not just a tech tour but one filled with personal heritage and stories. A whiff of history, a dose of technology, the magic of trains and the warm hospitality of Anna and Milind maketh a great morning feast :)

Anna and Milind 

James Cameron ….moments away from a historic dive

The world knows James Cameron as one of the most successful film directors but the truth is that he is a technologist and an explorer at heart. Every movie he makes is filled with technologies he kluges together and exploring the ocean is his passion.  And the thing that is most striking about him is that despite all his success and the glamour that surrounds him, he revels in getting his hands dirty with scientific exploration.  A one time truck driver turned film maker is truly passionate about pushing himself beyond reason to explore depths of the universe … literally.  So, what makes Jim?  Who is he really? 

My first real opinion of Jim was formed when I watched him declare himself the “king of the universe” when he received the Oscar for “Titanic”.  And all I could do was roll my eyes.  I was working with a lot of powers to be in Los Angeles at that time and it was fascinating to observe the unparallel talent that pulls you toward a person and the spoilt brat behaviour that makes you walk away.  A couple of years ago, I got to know Jim and his wife Suzy along with their business partner Maria and I discovered a total new side of Jim, who was unpretentious, charming and very easy going. When I interviewed him at the INK conference 2010, I asked him as to what changed him from being that seemingly arrogant man at the Oscars to an almost bearable person today.  Though framed in humor, my question was truly sincere in that I wanted to get to the bottom of this transformation.  And the answer that Jim gave was rather surprising - He said that it is working with the scientific community that brought about the change in him.  He said that Hollywood rewards bad behaviour but when you are creating a submersible that has to can go to the depths of the ocean, you have to work together as equals and learn to respect every opinion that is put forth.  He gave the credit to the scientific community for keeping him grounded.  This is what Jim said.  And then when you look at what he does, he rarely does anything significant (including the trip to India) without his wife, Suzy.  After knowing her, I can say that it is her simplicity and grace that keeps him grounded as well.  

As I write this blog, Suzy and Jim along with his scientific team are on their way to Mariana Trench, preparing for Jim to do something historic - make a solo dive to the deepest part of Earth’s oceans - Challenger Deep.  According to Suzy’s email to me “We are on a Mermaid Sapphire ship and steaming from the small atoll of Ulithi to Challenger Deep.  It is a 16 hour journey……From the time they close the hatch until the time when Jim climbs out of the hatch will be around 10 hours”.  

I can only imagine what it feels to go to the darkest place on earth solo and come back to tell about it.  It’s 10 hours of eternity, of being surrounded by one the most magical, dark, powerful body of water that occupies most of this earth.  National Geographic mentioned that Jim already set a new record for deepest solo submersible dive earlier this year.

When Jim completes the dive, the world will celebrate his accomplishment and I plan to raise a toast to do the same and also celebrate the seven year journey, of his personal commitment to use his wealth and his reputation for dedicating it to science and most importantly, a toast to Suzy because she is his rock and she does it with so much grace.  Please follow our tweets at @INKtalks, @DeepChallenge and @suzymusing.

I interviewed James Cameron as a part of the INK Conference 2010. Checkout these INKtalks videos. 

Part I

Part II