company / community

 

1.

One of the blogs I have followed for more than 15 years, is Matt Webb’s Interconnected. I am not sure how I came across his blog, but it is one I kept track of, as I migrated from blogreader to google reader to feedly over the years. I don’t understand him many times, but like people whom we remember for having given us something in life, I owe him for introducing me to Gregory Bateson’s “Steps to an Ecology of Mind”, all those years back. I came across below in one of his latest blogs. 

"For me, a company is, at least to a degree, for the people in it. Right?

A company that makes not too much profit but is the collective endeavour of many people is a good company, surely? Or rather, it occupies as many people as it requires and allows those people to enjoy a relaxed life.

Imagine a company staffed by people with enough room in their days to build intuitive skill in their work and show empathy to customers. To be not transactional.

And to take long lunches.

That’s good for them and good for the community the company is part of, right?

An aside:

My second job was as Saturday boy at the local ironmonger’s.

One day we cut the hedge and swept the street. We did it for the neighbour too because, as Eric said, that’s what neighbours do."

I had been thinking in similar lines for a long time. I wanted to write down a manifesto of a company which will exist for just the purpose he articulated above - for allowing people who work there to enjoy a relaxed life. Why shouldn’t friends who want the same things work together for life? Instead of the company’s primary purpose as satisfying shareholders and the market, what if one exists for just the people who make up the company. Beyond the rhetoric of “assets of the company walk out every day and come back the next day”, but existing for those assets as the primary purpose. 

2.

I read below in Thejesh’s blog. 

I see that people think being nice is a weakness and never gets work done. It's not true in my experience. I believe not being nice to each other means there are assholes in the surroundings. And they drag down the team. I strictly follow the No Asshole Rule and avoid them at all costs. 

I had been thinking in similar lines the same day I read this. I had thought since long and came to a conclusion that managers in traditional companies cannot be true friends with the team - since if they say everything they know or feel, it might be depressing (same as the way parents may want to protect the children from the harsh realities of the life for as long as possible) and that if you eventually are forced to decide compensation, gradation based on performance, decide on progression of someone’s career under constraints of a limited budget and such, there will be scenarios where it is not possible to be defined as a friend in traditional sense. 

Now the connection to niceness. I had come across the difference between being kind vs being nice - being nice could be interpreted as avoiding unpleasantness and conflict, but being kind could be to put something in a way that conveys the message that is useful to someone but without being an asshole. I was thinking whether the standards are lowered, people not realising their potential and raising their level when everyone is being nice to each other. Compared to the “tough love” of a strict teacher or a boss who demands excellence and won’t settle for anything less or the “hairdryer” treatment managers were known to give to underperforming team mates. I was mentally comparing different groups whom I had known where the collective standards are higher vs lower. Danger is that many times this can slip to asshole territory and become toxic, like the movie “Whiplash” with a teacher who drives the students to the edge of madness in pursuit of perfection. So the question is where is the line and what is the right thing to do. 

I also had come across this line from Naval Ravikant, that I adopted - that one should aspire to work with peers, all relationships as peer relationships, no hierarchies. 

Now combining this, being nice/kind, all relationships as peer relationships with the earlier concept of a company existing for the people - how should the ways of working be? 

3.

For the third and final thread in this is, this story about places where people live the longest. 

"The Chorotega also have a strong sense of community, with the whole town coming together to build each new house. It's a concept called "mano vuelta" which roughly translates as "work for the collective benefit".

"People look for tricks to live longer," Ezekiel said, "But you can't live a life of consumption and greed, then balance it out with superfoods. You have to live in an integrated way: an active life; a kind life; a community life.

"When someone in the village needs a new house, we all come together and build it. When someone slaughters a pig, we all come together and share it. No-one eats too much, but we all have enough. And we take it in turns to provide."

"During my life," he said, "I was not a grand person – a person of significance, or anything like that – but I have always been a good friend. You have to love yourself, and others. Because if you love a friend, you cannot wish anything bad on other people. That stops things going bad for you from the inside."

As we left, he patted my hand and nodded towards Dre. "And it's very important to love a good woman," he said.

I had read about these longitudinal studies where people are followed for decades from childhood to find out what makes people happy, successful. My gist of the takeaway from all that was that, at the end, it is only the relationships that one had which matters. In current times, when the sense of community is degrading, we could be missing out on the critical elements of what makes us happy in the long term.

Now if I combine the sense of community also to the conditions before - company existing for the people, creating conditions for a strong community bonding, being kind to each other, maintaining peer relationships - how should it work? Is it utopian? Does it violate any of the fundamental nature of human beings in which case such endeavours would ultimately fail? Need to take this thought experiment further some day. 

Perfect Days

I have been waiting for one movie to come out on any of the OTT platforms, seeing the praise from many in my “circle” and finally got to watch it - Perfect Days, a Japanese language film, by a German director. It is about a man who goes about his days cleaning toilets in Tokyo. Its dialogues could be printed in a handful of pages, very little is said. It shows the routines of a normal life, simple pleasures in life such as music, nature and books, not worrying about the tomorrows but living in the now, not living to others expectations, needing little, not taking on commitments for the sake of it and being satisfied with what one has. 

I had written “change one thing a day” at the top of the daily journal, to remind myself to change some part of my routine every day, to avoid getting into comfort zones and declining. But this is the opposite - having the exact same routines every day. Same morning routines, same coffee, listening to 70s or 80s songs from cassette tapes, doing the work well, having same food at same place, looking at the nature and its small changes, cycling in the evening to a public bath, eating at the same restaurant, being served the same food with same comment from the same friendly waiter, reading a book till getting sleepy and entering a peaceful sleep.

I had been watching a few movies that just shows lives unfolding, but doesn’t explain, leaving the interpretation to the audience. “Show, don’t tell” philosophy. Afterwards I go into rabbit holes of online discussion forums like reddit to read interpretations, sometimes surprising ones where I missed noticing something. But it is good to make each of these our own, with our own interpretations. Most directors also want the same from their audience.   

In this one, why does he stay alone? Is there something from the past that drove him to this way of living? Is the future going to be the same or will he want change? What about loneliness, needing human connection? He doesn’t react to people wanting to initiate connection, is that deliberate? What does the final scene mean - when the song “life is good” is playing in the background, is he crying from the happiness of his perfect days or mixed with sadness of the effort it takes to maintain his peace? 

I liked that he is treating his job as something to be done perfectly. Someone remarks that the toilets will get dirty again, so why be perfect in cleaning it? Why create custom tools for it? Why look under the surfaces that no one might see, with a handheld mirror and clean there too? As a contrast to a co-worker who cleans absentmindedly, while looking at the phone or wanting to rush and finish so that he can take a girl out. Like Steve Jobs’ philosophy to do a good job with the side of a piece of furniture that is not seen by anyone, that is closer to the wall maybe, but even that to be polished just right. Or everyone who contributed to the Mac machine signing the motherboard of the computer - why make the innards of a gadget look good? There is personal satisfaction in that - to do a job well, that may not be seen by anybody, but just because it is the right thing to do.   

“The world is made up of many worlds; some are connected, and some are not.”

The man and his niece were talking about him and his sister (her mother) living in different worlds. I used to think there are worlds or universes around us. Even entering a building that we might have passed by hundreds of times, but never entered - if we look out from there, to the familiar streets, it is a new perspective that we never had before. I used to try and look at my town with the eyes of a foreigner - what would they see and think? Or each person who passes us by - they are living in their own worlds, which may be very different from what I experience. If we enter the kitchen of a restaurant, the staff quarters of a hotel, inside of a football coaching centre, college for deaf/mute or an arts school - there are an infinite number of such worlds that don’t intersect with mine. 

“Next time is next time. Now is now.” 

They were talking about following the river to the place where it meets the sea, but he said next time, without planning when that next time will be. About living in the present, not in the past or future. Not making elaborate plans for the future. Being ok with what we have now.   

I love the way songs are used in such movies, giving it new meaning or as a way to subtly explain the emotions of the moment. These days people make playlists that are helpful, such as this one. Incidentally the man asks which place is Spotify when his niece asks if the songs can be found on Spotify. Slow living it is - free of devices, social media, not knowing the latest meme. I read somewhere that over the years, the words in the song lyrics are becoming similar. Just like fashion, people, cities, books, movies, colours all becoming similar and trending to the average that the majority likes. It is time to rediscover older songs that were made when the lyrics were not written by a committee that tests it against a target group to predict the next super hit. 

weekly notes, wk 16 / 2024

 1.

Few of the routines like daily journal and walk/run got broken with the travel and recovery. It is a difficult time of the year, with the oppressive heat, uncertainty introduced by a confusing economic situation, many challenges for the people around me and some degradation of relationships and structures. I am planning to take a week off to rest, reset and hope to get back with more clarity and rhythm. 

2. 

Finished 7th book this year - Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. This was a different premise that I had never come across before - the world of game designers and developers. I didn’t have a computer during school and college, but had played games like road rash, doom and few such varieties of shooter, racing and such. But did not get hooked further, never owned a Wii or Playstation or Xbox. But had seen glimpses of the sophistication of newer games, parallel worlds of people and cultures of gamers. I have followed one of the legends in game development - John Carmack - for some years. This book follows a boy and a girl, both nerds, who met at the age of twelve or thirteen and follows their life and career till their forties. Korean, Japanese, American - a mix of cultural elements too. It is their story of creating games, building a company, about how people change with situations that they never might have imagined when they make childhood promises, while still some of the core remains the same. 

Story had a couple of pivot points where the main protagonists drift apart and then come back together again. It made me wish the misunderstandings between people are not based on silly premises. Since we get only this one life, why would we not fight harder to mend broken relationships. If it is broken, it should be because of deeper or meatier issues, but guess it is not often so. There were passages, especially in the stages of the story where they were figuring each other out, that I felt were beautiful - like fiction revealing the truths about the human condition. It dragged towards the end, like many good things where the creators struggle to figure out how to end it. Highly recommend this one though - for the unique characters, for the unique premise and some introspection about relationships. 

3. 

Watched two movies. October (Hindi) - picked this up since I saw someone recommend that this was a poetic film, but didn’t resonate with me. Felt contrived, forced, not serious enough to explore the complexity of characters going through traumatic life experiences. 

No way out (English) - rewatch, since I didn’t remember watching this at all earlier. Kevin Costner in his young days and Gene Hackman - it was like a pulp fiction watch, the likes which one can use to defuse some tension. 

weekly notes, wk 15 / 2024

I wanted to capture some memories, atleast so that it comes in google photos a few years later as a reminder. I was in London in the past week for work and had seen only the hotel, office and the restaurants either in the hotel or below the office. Now on my way back to the airport, in the taxi, was trying to click some photos and ten second videos to save as proof that I was here this week. 

Early greenshoots of the spring were on the trees, pink and white cherry blossoms and the flowery mat it lays down next to the trees in the parks or streets were beautiful. It was a sunny day, unlike other cloudy or rainy cold days of the past few. People were out for a run. I didn’t realize cycle lanes were so common now in the city. I had lived and worked in the UK for nearly a year, but maybe about twenty years back. I had done the touristy things in the city then - visiting the Big Ben, London eye, Buckingham palace and the likes, but don’t seem to remember anything about the city to know how much it changed. I was thinking a city that is hundreds of years old might not change in decades, but someone was remarking that in the last 10 years or so, so much new construction had come up. There were modern glass buildings with different architecture styles sitting next to heritage buildings.   

I was thinking about building codes that enforce colour palettes, keeping the Thames river clean, what might the people who go for a run in the middle of the day be doing for work and such random rabbit holes. I had put on Discover Music playlist on Spotify which brought on “Entammede Jimikki Kammal” song, thought about skipping, but then listened wondering where they got such quirky lyrics from - lyrics go like “My father stole my mother’s drop earrings, my mother drank up all my father’s brandy”. 

Then the driver decided to strike up a conversation by asking where I was travelling to. He always wanted to go to India, but couldn’t and now he has two boys aged two and three, so travelling with them now would be a nightmare on long flights. He asked if India has a lot of poor. I said inequality is rising thinking about the graph that I saw a few days back with diverging directions of economic growth of Top 1% and Top 10% going up and bottom 50% going down or flat. 

He liked the chapatis made by his neighbour, likes “curry” but can’t take so much spice saying our taste buds must have been fried long back. Just a day back a colleague was talking about being taken to a restaurant that had the best fish dishes in the area and being served such bland food that she said she wouldn’t have eaten even if she was starving. I am not sure what is the right palate, it is just the way we were trained to eat.  

I don’t remember using London taxis in the past, so this was the first trip where I used the cabs that had the one rear back seat row separated from the driver in a glass enclosure with just the opening like a ticket counter. Uber was not working for a couple of days and I had some sort of phobia of entering train stations and figuring out the tickets which actually turned out to be misplaced. Technology seems to have evolved to an extent we could just tap in with a credit card or the likes of google pay in the turnstiles to the underground and it deducts a charge based on where we get out - ticketing done easy. But sorting out the trains to the airport while dragging a bag, knowing London weather is unpredictable, was why I decided on the taxi (the same colleague I mentioned above had said London weather is like its women - unpredictable, hence a gentleman always carries an umbrella).  

In the last two days, I had a good time travelling and figuring out trains with another colleague whom one could say was rip roaringly funny. Eventually what remains in the memory on such trips is not the actual work that gets done, but the moments like these. He was self effacing, was told he appears apologetic while introducing or even talking about something he is good at, seemed not bothered by any such, making fun of himself and in his own way making the life of everyone around brighter. I am jealous of such people who don’t take themselves too seriously, dripping with effortless humour. I can’t be funny like that, but I can play the amplifier role, jamming with a lead artist, building on their lines and creating a mini band. Hence the three of us had laughed through London buses, trains and taxis for two days, talking about his brain freezing when anyone tells him directions, still leading the way, wanting to sing London Bridge is Falling Down after getting down at London Bridge station, talking in Bengali with a cab driver and a lot of deadpan humour. 

The driver wanted to know if cows had the right of way in India and whether it is a crime if we hit them accidentally on the road. I could only say I am from the south of India and it is different in south vs north. At this rate, I was wondering when he would ask if snake charmers are still around in India. Luckily our conversation shifted to my line of work, artificial intelligence, whether it is going to take away jobs soon and the dangers of it, Jaipur and why it is called pink city, when will the monsoon start, climate change, floods and such. 

I was answering questions which is not the same as making a proper conversation. I know the theory that “being interested, not interesting” is the key to good conversation, but still haven’t figured this out even now. Much later while overhearing the long conversation the strangers in front of me in the plane were having, I was thinking I should learn the skill of small talk even though it is not natural to me - the sounds to make that shows interest and encouraging the other person to continue, asking questions back (not worrying if it is prying, but knowing everyone want to talk about themselves) and connecting it to something I can offer to augment. 

I was looking at the strange people all around. This is why they say travel opens up the mind. Breaking from routines, sleeping in beds that we are not used to, eating differently and meeting new people. For example, the guy in high platform shoes which looked like a raised stage on which concerts are held, tall, wearing tight fitting red leather or spandex pants and top, walking while eating a twelve inch subway sandwich. Or the guys who look like the English version of rednecks, but with moustaches, some looking a bit like Freddy Mercury of the band Queen. Or the chubby Japanese girl who had heavy makeup on, holding a huge bunch of beautiful flowers. I wish I could take a notepad out and keep notes.

Eventually, I got dropped at a wrong terminal which I had confidently told him was the right one, forgot my jacket in his car and ended up on a long walk to another terminal. Just the right end to a trip which seemed like a simulation, not reality, where I kept forgetting different things - like the glasses I forgot in a Uber cab which I managed to get back a day later since the guy was really helpful in coordinating how to get that back to me or the manner in which I rushed through the ticketing, packing, all at the last minute. No major disasters other than two sleepless nights in Mumbai airport in just one week and three days of non stop headache that I am trying to shake off. I hope the mini sacrifices and the trouble will be worth it this year. 

weekly notes, wk 14 / 2024

1. 

I took a session to the team this week on High Agency. This concept that we can influence the course of events around us and make change, rather than be a victim of the circumstances. I feel the number of people who are self directed, who will not give up when faced with challenges, who will find a way through ambiguity, are rarer now. I read a few articles, listened to podcasts and watched any available videos to prepare for this and hope to collate the content around this to one place for future reference. Hope to continue to find a way to strengthen that attribute in me and people around me. 

2. 

I have often felt that when I am worried about a topic or a line of thought, I will find signs of that everywhere. I call it my version of deja vu, knowing it maybe that once I find something, I look for the same or find associations in what I see, so the serendipity is probably made up my mind, but would like to think of it as the universe trying to tell me something. This week it was two things. One was that “words are cheap, look for actions to know what someone really feels”. I was trying to assess myself with that scale - are my actions meeting my words? I came across this in a podcast (Invest like the best - Robin Dunbar, of Dunbar number fame) as well as a random tweet pointing to a life coach advising on relationships. 

Another was about “pathless path” - this book about creating our own path, deviating from the default paths on which we might be sleepwalking now. I was thinking about this constantly while sitting through some mindless sessions, thinking if the business of software development is disconnected from the actual pleasure of software development. Came across this in another article which beautifully described how the brain gets lulled into a comfort zone by choosing paths of least resistance, the need to fight that by changing things, and avoid choosing autonomous paths which we will end up regretting much later. It is a recurring theme I am coming across now. 

3. 

I am labouring through the book “48 laws of power” - it continues to disgust me, but I am continuing thinking I should know the dark secrets too and maybe even write a counter to it one day (maybe a fantasy). 

I am a third of the way into the book “Art of Loving” by Eric Fromm. I wish I had read this much earlier and maybe such subjects should be taught in schools, for people to have a better understanding of ourselves and treat each other much better than what we would have otherwise in our clumsy attempts at learning such lessons through failures that end up hurting one another. It is not an easy read, but I found it fascinating that we love because it is the only way we realize our humanity, escape from the human condition of loneliness, that love flows from freedom and independence and it needs care, responsibility, respect and deep knowledge of another person.  

4. 

I keep dropping into rabbit holes and burrow farther in. I happened to read an appreciation tweet by Pico Iyer about the actress Carey Mulligan and her movies. I looked up many of her movies, read one story that was turned into a movie in which Carey Mulligan acted (An Education) and ended up watching two of her movies. She Said (Netflix) was about investigative reporting that brought down Harvey Weinstein and launched the metoo movement across the world. It is mind boggling to know the level of sleaze which was condoned by many people in the industry to allow people like Harvey Weinstein to destroy people for many years without any repercussions. I like this genre of movies about journalists battling odds to uncover important stories (The Post, All the Presidents Men, Spotlight) and this one didn’t disappoint. 

Another was a much more mellow affair, The Dig (Netflix), about an archaeological excavation of burial mounds and people who dedicate their lives to such quests, like the extremely long rabbit holes. Slow movie, but just the kind I like.         

weekly notes, wk 13 / 2024

 

1. 

I travelled to Ernakulam for a day this week. For the first time, took the new Vande Bharat train - it was clean, comfortable and quite fast. Came back the same day, in a state transport bus. Online booking systems have become better. But the bus was delayed by more than an hour and the only way to track was to call the bus conductor to know where they were. Being Easter long weekend, there were a lot of students going home and it was crowded. Onward in the train took about 3.5 hrs and the return through bus took about 6 hrs. Met a couple of friends there, had ice stick candy at a place called Peni, lunch at a Punjabi dhaba opposite Cochin ShipYard and continued the discussions at a juice shop called Haji Ali. 

2. 

We were at Kollam for two days this week. Both days, I picked a random pin near the ocean in the map which was about 30 mins away from home and walked there. I am convinced that there is something going on, maybe in that community around, where people maintain the streets very well, all boundary walls painted and even a house made of tin sheets had a clean boundary made of cloth material. It is summer vacation, kids were playing football in uneven grassy fields, with wooden frames for goal posts and they had some spectators too. First location was coincidentally the same place that we had stopped during a random drive long back and second was a small beach. It was one of the best walks in recent times. 

3. 

Watched two movies - one with chakki, in a theatre after a long time. Manjummel Boys (Malayalam), which is based on a true story of someone falling into a cave that is known as Devil’s Kitchen (named by the British, later called Guna caves after a Kamal Haasan movie that was shot there) and the miraculous and heroic rescue. It was well made. We watched it in an old theatre at Kollam where the sound system wasn’t upgraded, hence the dialogues were coming across a bit muffled. These days I am too critical of most of what I read or watch, not sure if it is an effect of ageing - I felt the stories that are picked for the movies in Kerala are not raising the aspiration levels of our youth. I shouldn’t complain much since I don’t like the fact that Bollywood is disconnected from the realities of life of average Indians, but the malayalam movies are depicting youth who are not interested in education, who somehow scrape through a livelihood and glorify the drinking culture. It is probably the reality, which is depressing.  

 

Watched Anatomy of a Fall (French). It was about a sudden death of a husband, in a family of three, ensuing trial of the wife as a murder suspect and the key witness is their son who is vision impaired. It was about the complexity of marriage, relationships, figuring out what is the truth, what is not and judging someone from slices of their life which never gives a full understanding. We do not know for sure what we truly believe, our memories are sometimes interpretations too and if we struggle to truly describe even ourselves in clear terms, how does someone else decide based on incidental interactions? It had one very long scene of the couple (she does not believe in couples) having an argument that goes into nuances of their relationship and how each is perceiving the other - it must have been one of the best written and acted scenes that I had ever seen in a movie. 

weekly notes, wk 12 / 2024

 

1. 

Watched a series, The Old Man (Disney+), primarily since I wanted to escape and take my mind off things. It had some promise - of an old ex-spy who still can beat much younger professionals comprehensively and his daughter who he wants to save. Good writing - even though I was wondering if the profound dialogues about the meaning of life will really hold muster if we try to understand what it really means. It all sounds like zen koans or beautiful poetry and hints that someone has achieved enlightenment to be able to grasp bigger truths, but is it anything better than hallucination?

Watched a movie in the theatre after a long time, Premalu (Malayalam). It had many laugh out loud moments and I like the main characters from their previous movies (Naslen and Mamatha Baiju). I am not sure if my mood is colouring my perception, but I was thinking if this is degrading the expectations from average Malayali boys/men, who can use booze to forget disappointments or failures and gain sympathy, expect girls/women to take care of them, blame dysfunctional families for poor discipline and behaviour, stumble through studies (make fun of CBSE and math olympiad) and eventually succeed at life by emigrating to middle east or US/UK/Canada/Australia. I am probably intellectualising something which is meant as a light hearted comedy, sort of as a poor man’s Hyderabad Days (as opposed to the movie Bangalore Days). 

2. 

Finished reading “Thinking in Systems” by Donella Meadows. I should write a longer blog about lessons learned from it. I had been thinking for some time that there is an invisible thread connecting many of the philosophies guiding distributed systems development, microservices, buddhism, blockchain, complex systems, open source and how nature works. In my limited power to shape teams, I hope I can apply some of the learnings - in how hierarchies work, how feedback loops are setup, how to have more real time information flows, how to be comfortable with adaptive nature of teams and where to look for leverage to nudge them in the right direction. 

3. 

Continued to listen to long podcasts from The Seen and the Unseen and continuing to write bit longer daily journals. Even some days seem long where I think nothing significant happened, but once I start writing, a lot of things stumble out, thoughts that I was trying to connect from what I read, listen and experience. Slow productivity, slow living, consuming long form reads, not falling into the trap of short form content in any form, writing more, having longer conversations - everything I am coming across of late seems to point to this. Maybe a phase.   

4. 

I read something about building apps for oneself like having a “home cooked meal”. Creating something just to use within family and friends. I had come across a similar idea earlier too, about coming to an era of building personal tools rather than mass produced software. Something to try.  

weekly notes, wk 11 / 2024

 

1. 

I had written daily diary on and off last year. Restarted again last week and wrote every day. Even on the days when I think there was nothing noteworthy, once I start writing, reflecting about the day, there was a lot that happened every day. I keep reading about the advantages of daily journaling and I can see why. It helps to be reflective, realize days are not wasted away and hopefully helps with the memory. Hope to continue. 

2. 

This week I got back to The Seen and the Unseen podcast after some time. It covers people from all walks of life in India - most other popular podcasts are monopolised by Americans, so this is refreshing to know stories closer to home. It has gotten longer and longer, with interviews running into more than five hours, so I had left it at some time, but other more serious ones have become too much of a good thing. I couldn’t make myself listen to one more product management or business or tech podcast. So maybe it is time to take a break and come back to this. It is good to hear about the struggles of people trying to make it here, in academia, economics, politics, media, law, medicine, not just everything being technology business. How lives have been shaped over the decades in India. I used to follow this podcaster, Amit Verma, for more than ten years, through his blog and writing and he had good perspectives on many topics - for example, how people like Trump are giving permission for others who had their extreme opinions that they never voiced until someone like this gave them permission to do so, hence this is not a change in people, but that it was always there under the wraps. 

3. 

Watched three movies this week. Brahmayugam (Malayalam) - it was a horror movie set in 17th century in Kerala, that had usual tropes of Yakshi and Chathan, but given a much nuanced perspective with layers of caste oppression, rich and poor, colonizers, with the poor never escaping from these layers however hard they try. Mammootty takes a negative character and shines again - he continues his brilliant choices (Kaathal, Puzhu, Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam and more). 

Aattam (Malayalam, meaning The Play) - a story about a woman complaining of sexual abuse and eleven people in her drama group deciding how to proceed. It left me shaken a bit, feeling bad about men. Every one of the men revealed their real face - of power grabs, money vs values, prejudices, manipulation, no one thinking about the girl truly even though they all show they care and even those who call her “molae” (daughter). It was like the ending of the Malayalam movie, Ishq, where the man wasn’t truly concerned about the trauma of the woman, but wanted to ensure his pride wasn’t hurt. In one family discussion when some sexist remark was made, Chakki was saying she should make a syllabus of movies for that person to watch to learn - in that respect, I think such Malayalam movies (including Great Indian Kitchen, Jaya Jaya Jaya He and many others) must be doing a great service to raise the awareness levels in the society. 

The Two Popes (English) - was interesting to watch the contrasting views of conservative leaning and liberal learning priests, probably formed by the societies they were part of and their personal histories. Reminded of our trip to the Vatican and finding a side entrance somewhere to escape some long queues, through a hidden tip in some travel website. 

4. 

Watched the announcement of Devin, AI programming assistant and the related comments. Someone tweeting saying “enjoy the last few years of manual programming”. I played with Github Copilot last year and so far it didn’t seem such a massive change is up on us any time soon, but this seems to take it further. We might be in for interesting times in the next five years and hope countries like India which depend on IT for job creation will be prepared for the transition.  

weekly notes, wk 10 / 2024

 

1. 

It was a busy week at work and some sickness at home. Holiday for Sivarathri at the end of the week helped to get some rest. During the week I had to make some quick decisions at work which may have some long term impact. I was thinking about how communication abilities of people become achilles heel for some talented people. I don’t find good ways to find fixes for it, to change people and I continue to try despite knowing it is near impossible. 

2. 

Watched three movies. Anweshippin Kandethum (Malayalam) - which is a crime thriller. I think it doesn’t add much to the usual stories, but it had some good acting and was a good watch. It was good to see the locale of remote Kerala villages compared to city based stories. 

Merry Christmas (Tamil) - watched since I am a Vijay Sethupathi fan, but the film was disappointing to me. It is an adaptation of a French crime novel. The story, the plot twist and suspense was good, but for me it looked forced and artificial.   

Ore Kadal (Malayalam) - older malayalam movie by Shyamaprasad with Mammootty and Meera Jasmine in lead roles. Complexity of people’s lives are way more than the normal films depict, so in that sense, it explores difficult questions. Well acted, but the morality question could have been explored a bit more deeply.  

3. 

I am trying to read more long form articles, to get away from social media, click baits and short video formats. I started keeping a list of articles I read, indexed with tags and a quick one liner on what I liked about it. Taking some notes, extracts as well. Becoming more organized with what I learn.  

Power laws in culture - about how the content explosion is leading to InfiniteTV sort of phenomenon, how there is always going to be few very big hits which may be prequels, sequels or superhero ones that are safe bets which will be “conformed” by social signalling followed by a very, very long tail of content which will struggle to get recognized. 

Generative AI: a creative new world - one year older, but interesting to see the prediction that video content will be like “personalized dreams” by 2030 and “text to product” will be mature by then. What would lakhs of engineering graduates flocking to IT do if this prediction is true? What skills should the current students learn to prepare for this? Next 5 years will be very interesting. I hope people can prepare for the disruptions in work and life due to it. 

Telling a story and making a point - how to tell stories with data. About “making a figure for the Generals” - how to simplify the story to say whether we are making progress or not towards the goal, for senior leaders who will want the gist of the story rather than the gory detail. Building up by showing the basics first and then adding complexity layer by layer. Using different visualizations for distinct analysis to avoid everything being fused in the audience's mind. 

Communication is the job - connected to my first point, to consciously develop the communication skill. Once we have moved to remote / hybrid which is becoming normalized, developing multiple channels of communication and repetition of messages would be key to align a distributed team on why we are doing what we are doing. 

4. 

Completed a 100 day streak with Spanish language learning in Duolingo. Hope to keep going this year and see how to get a bit more comfortable.