Mr & Mrs Iyer, `by` Miss Iyer

Here's presenting what our daughter Diksha might be thinking of us

I am just about 14 years old, and do understand the importance of protocol. So let me start with my Mom.

She I think is cute and simple, but married to a crazy........you know whom. Right from my younger days (I mean childhood days, I am young now!), she has encouraged and piloted me to various activities outside of school, be it skating, dancing, or, ah......well I suppose these two primarily. And like every other Mom, been after my life to complete my homework and studies on time. Eureka! I have discovered all Moms act alike.

What are the things I like about her? Well.....she is very caring, loves her family – I mean not just me and Dad, but her mother, brother, cousins. She is very artistic, wow! she actually draws amazingly well. And she cooks yummy.

And what is that I don't like about her? The same things actually that Moms take a lot of pride in – telling their children what is good and what is bad, why I should not keep things wherever I want, why I should take care of my hair and health, and how I don't fully appreciate what my parents do for me, etc, etc, etc – instructions, instructions, instructions. It is in these moments that I miss a sibling; at least the instructions can be shared. Actually, she is right, but why should I understand anyway? I am too young, you see!

And here's about my Dad. He's a cool dude actually, but somehow can't fathom why he thinks he is some kind of a person always in demand. He behaves as if he is getting younger every year. But can't he see I am growing older? There is just one word to describe him – crazy. These days, he is on cloud nine, because I stood second in an essay competition in school – no, no, it's not pride in his daughter's talent and all that. That's because the title of the essay was, Father – My Role Model. But I gave him the breaking news anyway, that I did not choose the topic, it was given to us. Guess his expression?

But he has this amazing capacity to keep himself and all of us excited. My Mom is so unlike him, and that's why I think they complete each other. He sings Bollywood songs as if he is the successor to all the legendary Hindi film singers. He is embarrassingly loud in his conversations sometimes – actually most of the times – my Mom rightly reminds him that our house is not a training room and the mobile is not a microphone. He often stares at the mirror as if he is the only true master creation of God. Actually, I carry the same habit and attitude.

Interesting characters I have inherited as Mom and Dad. My Mom is a typical housewife, concerned with the way the house is, whereas my Dad is concerned with the way the world is. I don't mind that as longs he gets enough money home for my regular Mc D burgers, movies, and outings. My father is an intellectual – at least he thinks he is one – and regularly stacks his library with new books, which I can't relate to, not at this stage of my life at least. Life right now is too cool to be serious; it's LoL (lots of laughter).

Well, what about me? What kind of person am I? That Dad will anyway cover someday in his blog! So keep reading.

PS: Before I sign off, I love my Mom and Dad, and they love me too.

VVS: Where The Bat Was A Brush, And The Cricket Field A Canvas

Laxman was not just one of his kind, he was the only ONE

VVS Laxman got it all wrong. He thought the cricket field was a large canvas, the bat a brush and the ball a solidified form of paint. Instead of dogged defence, he presented a light touch, instead of hitting the ball hard, he caressed it, as if not to cause pain, and instead of placing the delivery in the area of its arrival, like an artist does with a paint brush, he simply changed direction and placed the ball where it could find greater relevance to the divine cause of expression.

Laxman was more of an artist, and less of a batsman. He simply expanded the vision of being a painter to a dimension which required a vast space like a cricket field. The artist in him needed a much larger canvas to pour out the genius within. Fans like me did not watch Laxman bat just to see him score runs or bail India out of one more tight situation. We watched him bat because in the pretext of a willow in hand, with his artistic strokes, he provided perspectives about life which only a person with artistry in his soul could. He maneuvered the cricket field as an artist maneuvers through various creative ideas.

Just as you thought the delivery was now going to be inevitably delivered to the cover fence with a copybook swirl of the bat, with the left foot in tandem, the TV camera suddenly shifted towards the midwicket fence, focusing on a hapless and bewildered fielder fetching the ball. Just as an artist gets an instant inspiration to change the direction of his brush, Laxman often suddenly used to bring the wrist into play and dismiss the delivery to another corner of the large canvas called the cricket field. This aspect of his game was so unique that it can never ever be replicated on the cricket field. New batsmen taking his place in the middle order can replace the name in the batting order, but cannot replicate his talent, for he was not just one of his kind, he was the only ONE.

In terms of pure cricketing contribution, Laxman gave Indian cricket and India self belief. His 281 at Kolkata's Eden Gardens in the 2001 series against Australia was not just an extraordinary or unbelievable innings, it was an example of poetical destruction. Pace or spin met with a treatment which sunk the opposition into a `despair of admiration`. It was an example of grabbing the opportunity to etch his name amongst the immortals of the game. It is not that the innings manufactured Laxman, he manufactured the innings.

Whatever Laxman did or did not after that innings is purely a matter of academic discussion. In that innings he had scripted the future of Indian cricket. He started the journey of India years later being anointed as the world's No.1 test playing nation. To my mind, his innings in Kolkata and his mammoth partnership with Rahul Dravid (is it any coincidence that the two shared many great partnerships!) in that test is one of the great events in post-independence history of India. Though purely a great sporting event, it had ramifications for the entire nation's psyche, as India draws so much of its joys and sorrows from the happenings on the cricket field.

Laxman's retirement from the cricketing canvas marks the end of artistry in a game which is based so much on technique and temperament. Laxman battled hard all through his career to balance his inner urge for creativity as well as the situation he found the team in when he went into bat. But in the past few months, the artistry seemed to be deserting him; perhaps, the bat refused to be treated as a brush any more. Maybe, the bat could not reinvent itself any further. Maybe, Laxman finally had to accept that cricket is a game between bat and ball, the cricket field is not a canvas, and that he now needs to paint his future on a different pitch of life.

Artists change their canvas often, and maybe VVS, after sixteen long years, has done just that!    

I Have Turned `3` Today

I Have Turned `3` Today
For the record 43, but life begins at 40!

I write this in the morning hours of the day and this birthday is already coming through as a special one. We had a spot celebration at Barista past midnight with my wife's cousins, followed by a decent number of SMSes and phone calls this morning. And of course the facebook messages are already swelling up. I thank God from the bottom of my heart for all the lovely people I am blessed with in my life.

No doubt, life in the last three years since I decided to start out on my own has been tough, but fascinating to the core. It has opened up a whole new set of opportunities and brought me in contact with an incredible number of wonderful people. And the most important thing is I have never felt more young.

The reason for this is that somewhere along the journey of life I realised that life in a substantial and clear way begins only at 40. It was in my fortieth year (June 2009 to be precise) that I decided to quit my well paying job with a respected profile and attempt to recreate myself. The premise of my first book `The 20 20 20 20 Formula For Success` (co-authored with my friend Samuel Talari) was that a life of great purpose takes shape once you turn 40, as it takes that many years for many people to understand life from its depths and shape their role on this planet. In the first forty years, in slots of 20 years each, life shows us both its comfortable and uncomfortable sides. By the time we turn 40, a greater sense of perspective and maturity sets in, thereby placing us on the path of a deeper purpose.

Nature has gifted us with automatic physical growth. We play no role in how our face and physical structure evolves. Therefore, our primary responsibility is to acknowledge the power of being born as a human being and make it count. God has given us a mind and intellect, and he expects us to utilise them effectively to evolve as better life managers. When we touch 40, we reasonably outgrow viewing life from a predominantly physical perspective and start looking at it from a larger sense of consciousness. The true turning point of life is when we start seeing life with a purpose driven perspective, and not just from a paradigm of going through the motions.

Looked at in this way, age appears to be just a number. Age actually presents an opportunity to reinvent yourself and is definitely not a roadblock to your success. I tell people above 40 not to feel disheartened if they have not achieved anything substantial thus far, for `we are born` at 40 and they must count their age from thereon. If you look around, you will find that many people have achieved great things after turning 40. So, rather than feeling a kind of midlife crisis, this is the age when our youthful energies should manifest with renewed vigour and take us to heights like never before. For those who are under 40, I tell them, life has not even started, and many more enriching experiences are in store.

It is far better to succeed a little late in life and stay that way till the end than acquire success early and see it slipping away. In today's world we see too many people succeed too early and then struggle to hold on to it. This does not mean that people below forty should not strive for or achieve success earlier than many, but it helps to understand that success once attained also has to be sustained. Therefore, with early success also comes the responsibility to sustain it. And in any case, success is a continuous journey and not a destination.

All in all, life has so much to offer. All we need to do is keep our mind young always and allow the process of life to shower its unlimited abundance on us. Rather than feeling that every birthday is a step closer to death, create the feeling that every birthday is a more mature step towards fulfilling our life purpose. That way, you will acquire a bounce in your steps that will elevate you to a different level in life – each day, each year.

I have just turned 3 today. What's your age?

Remembering Sachin – My Best Friend!

Remembering Sachin – My Best Friend!
On this Friendship Day, I dedicate this blog to my childhood friend
Sachin Pradhan, who passed away on March 4, 2006

I was for sometime searching for an opportunity to dedicate a blog to Sachin, and what better day than Friendship Day! For all the extroverted personality I carry, I don't have a social circle as such, which essentially means over the years I have made friends mostly from my professional life. As I moved on, my friendships too have kept moving on.

But for a long time there was one constant friend – Sachin Nandakumar Pradhan, my childhood friend (langot yaar, as they say in Hindi). Our respective parents were great friends, naturally leading us to bond deeply. We grew up together, ate at each other's home, absorbed each other's culture (he was a Maharashtrian, while I am a Tamilian), played together, chatted, exchanged notes and loved each other's company.

Yet, we were quite unlike each other. He was a more withdrawn personality, measured in his words and deeds, whereas I was more boisterous and loud. We drifted into different paths (academically there was no comparison. He was an MTech from IIT and me an MA), operated out of different cities, but always felt and stayed connected.

The greatest common ground for us of course was our spiritual connection. In the year 1989 he acted as a perfect medium and took me to meet our Guru Dadaji in Pune. Dadaji initiated me into meditation (he already was initiated), and life never has been the same for me since then. Besides the great memories we share about Sachin, my greatest gratitude to him lies in taking me to our Guru. Somewhere, my Guru also gave me the strength to bear the loss of Sachin, who succumbed to a painful battle with cancer.

An incident that highlights his affection for me is when he specially flew down to Calcutta (now Kolkata) from Pune to meet me and my wife, as he was abroad at the time of our marriage. When he too got married, a close bond was forged between our respective families. Every time I moved out of Mumbai, whether it was Kolkata, or later Bangalore, he made it a point to visit us. But when in 2007 we moved to Kerala, he was no longer there in the world, and my wife and I kept telling each other how Sachin would have visited us there too if he had been alive.

A great quality he had was concern for the poor. If I remember correctly, he used to contribute in some way to help poor children for their education.

It's been over six years since he left us, but he still occupies a very important place in our hearts. Sachin lived a short life, but left behind a lifetime of memories.

Miss you my friend! And Thank You for being there in my life.