Category: Life System

I wrote about “Writing” earlier on in this series. In this iteration, I want to cover an aspect I did not delve deeper into then. It is what I term “iterative writing” – or iterating, for short. It is the secret of my prolific blog posting through much of the past two decades. Here is what I wrote previously: “I am writing all the time – I find I think better when I am with my notebook and pen. My notebook and pen are always with me. The mind is always at work. I am not much for meditation. My equivalent of meditation is sitting in a place with my notebook and letting the thoughts flow. My book becomes a mirror into my mind. I don’t worry about organising my thoughts when I am writing – there is always time to do that later.” I hinted at my process of writing towards the end: “Many times, I end up just rewriting old ideas. There is nothing that repetition will not improve. As Heraclitus put it, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” It is never exactly the same idea, and we are also not the same. I may rarely look up older notes but the slow evolution and natural selection of ideas is visible in my writings.”

Since I love coining new words (they always catch attention – like “proficorn”), I decided that this process of writing and iteratively improving it needed a new word. The word may be new, but the process is not. As ChatGPT puts it, “Iterative writing is a writing process where you revise and improve your work in multiple cycles or drafts. This approach allows you to refine your writing by making changes and additions until you are satisfied with the final product. The key to successful iterative writing is to approach it with a growth mindset, meaning you should be open to feedback and willing to revise your work.”

For me, iterating is about writing, making public my ideas via my blog, and then working to them better through times to come. I don’t worry about perfection in the first go. Since I am writing for myself, I like to put the ideas out there, then share and discuss with others, and think through improvements via conversations and feedback. If I don’t write, then I cannot get inputs and criticism – and without these, I cannot refine my ideas and writings. My approach thus is to create a ‘permalink’ that I can send to others so they can comment and challenge. My determination to ensure one post daily also helps; I don’t wait for the ideal essay – instead I put it out there knowing fully well that I will make a better version in the future. This is how many of the essays in my Marketing and India series have come about.

Many people I have spoken to want to write but for some reason are afraid. I tell them, “Forget what others think. Write for yourself, but do so on a public medium. Don’t hesitate to share. Once you are done with the first version, you will start thinking about a newer, better version. Make this iterative writing process public because otherwise the thoughts stay private and don’t improve.”

Iteriting also needs iterative thinking and presenting. I come up with ideas, write and then also make them into presentations. I then see which words and phrases catch attention, and then work on making them better. It is thus an evolutionary process. The only way to make it work is to not be embarrassed by one’s early ideas. Only out of these will the better ones emerge over time.

My advice: try it out. Take a few ideas you are passionate about and start writing. See if you commit to one new post daily – this will create the discipline of reading-thinking-writing, which is the key to iterating and creating better. It is the way innovations come about. It is the way writing can also be done.

As an Indian, it is hard not to love and follow cricket. I am no different. As I have grown older, the craze has gone, but the interest has not. When I was young, I meticulously followed cricket matches and listened to radio commentaries. I especially loved the live broadcasts from BBC and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – I could almost imagine myself being there at the stadium. (Besides, I loved the near-perfect English accents – which I tried to imitate!) I kept detailed statistics of key players and their averages – this was in the 1970s and early 1980s, when there was no Internet.

I played cricket in my building. I was a “kaccha” (raw, green) player, and always the last to be picked when teams were being formed. In fact, since I was younger than all the others, it took a lot of pleading from my mother to get me to become part of the group. And once I was in, I gave it my best. I learnt how to bat and bowl; I would play in our small flat by throwing the ball on the wall, and then hitting it and scoring. I learnt how to do both top spin and hold the ball back to make it come slower after pitching. I worked on improving my fielding. I kept daily stats on my performance – the days I scored runs or took a wicket or even a catch were my happy moments. Unfortunately, these were few and far between!

In my free time, I played book cricket. When the computer came into my life, one of the first games I wrote was a 1-day match simulator. In a few minutes, I could get a full scorecard of a match. Along with Monopoly, it was one of the great achievements of my early software career.

I saw a Test match once. An uncle had an extra ticket and took me along. I think it was Day 4 of this match – I clearly remember Gavaskar getting caught for 42. It was a wonderful experience – I was about 10 years old then.

As I grew older, life took over and my love for cricket diminished. The Internet brought it back. I launched Khel.com in 1997 – live cricket coverage and detailed stats with charts, which at that time were even better than Cricinfo. I poured my heart into the site – because I wanted it for myself! I had even collated all Ranji Trophy scores – the first of its kind in the world. One of the sad moments for me was when Khel.com was sold as part of the IndiaWorld deal; I would think many times of buying it back!

Now, I still like to track the scores on Cricinfo but the deep love is gone. I don’t care much about IPL. But I still have very fond memories of my younger years – cricket was so much a part of me and a shared experience with friends.

I am often asked how I manage to keep my emotions under control – especially when things are not going well. While I don’t know when I became like this, I think it was through my early failures as an entrepreneur. I had to separate the idea that failed from me as an adventurer. I also realised that if I let my emotions control me, I will dwell on the wrongs of the past rather than the problems I could solve in the future. The multiple failures also taught me humility – ups and downs, successes and failures are two sides of the same coin. So, I don’t go to either extreme.

A few years ago, I discovered a word for these beliefs: stoicism. As I wrote in a previous essay: “I had lived life on the principles of Stoicism without understanding that there was a name for it. Since then, I have read up more on Stoicism and have even advocated it to many others. What the Greeks and Romans came up with a couple thousand years ago has modern-day relevance. They also tie in with some of the ideas in Jainism around detachment. These ideas have helped me not just in personal life but also in business as an entrepreneur to live through more than 30 failed ventures and maintain equanimity through the 3 successes I have had in the past three decades… We cannot control the events that happen, but can control our reactions to those events. The writings and wisdom of people like Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca can help us lead a happier life and also create a continuously improving version of ourselves. It can mean better relationships with those around us – at home and work. And by doing so, we will have less stress and greater mental calm. Each of us may have our own way to reach that state – meditation, long walks, journaling, and so on. But what I like about Stoicism is that it provides a holistic approach rather than point solutions.”

I am not suggesting a life devoid of emotions – that would not be a life worth living. What I recommend is better control of our emotions, especially when we have no control on the events that occur; how we respond is what matters – for us and those around us. Emotional extremes can create dramatic mood swings and cause us to make decisions and take actions that we could regret later. When things go wrong, instead of panic or anger, I try and reflect for a few moments on what the worst-case scenario is, and then act or speak. Words once spoken cannot be taken back and actions done cannot be reversed – and could cause irrevocable hurt to those around us. Life does not have an “Undo” button.

Here are a few quotes from others on emotions which express some of my views better than I can:

• “Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you’re doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you.” – Joel Osteen
• “I get mad. I get sad. I have all those emotions. But I just like to keep them to myself. I don’t think my fans need to be bothered with if I’m mad or sad about something. I should just be concerned that they are keeping up with my music or I’m making them happy with my show.” – Demi Lovato
• “One of the key qualities a leader must possess is the ability to detach from the chaos, mayhem, and emotions in a situation and make good, clear decisions based on what is actually happening.” – Jocko Willink
• “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
• “Emotion can be the enemy, if you give into your emotion, you lose yourself. You must be at one with your emotions, because the body always follows the mind.” – Bruce Lee
• “Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business.” – Norman Vincent Peale
• “Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion.” – Anonymous

I ended my Stoicism essay thus: “Living life as a Stoic is not easy; it requires great discipline, self-reflection and awareness. It needs a mindset which is capable of constantly learning. We all are works in progress, and that is what Stoicism recognises. With some effort, we can become better and create a happier life for ourselves and those around us.” Gaining control over our emotions is important for our well-being and for those around us – at home and work. We need an outlet for our emotions – and for me, that has become my diary. It is better to experience negative emotions privately rather than burst out at innocents around. Joys are to be shared, but sorrows are better experienced quietly.

I was delighted to read a column by Ezra Klein about the transformation at Barnes & Noble (B&N) in the US: ““How is it that bookstores do justify themselves in the age of Amazon?” James Daunt, the chief executive of Barnes & Noble, asked during the Book Industry Study Group’s 2020 Keynote. “They do so by being places in which you discover books with an enjoyment, with a pleasure, with a serendipity that is simply impossible to replicate online. And to do that, you have to have a good bookstore.” Daunt’s diagnosis of the industry is refreshingly simple: Good bookstores thrive, bad bookstores die. He waves away the belief that online shopping and e-readers have been unstoppable harbingers of demise. “My view was that the reason bookstores had failed to defend themselves against Amazon is simply they weren’t good enough,” he told me, “and the only reason they would fail to defend themselves against Kindle is they wouldn’t be good enough.”…Barnes & Noble’s resurgence is a reminder that there is nothing inevitable about its (or any bookstore’s) demise. Great bookstores and libraries still provide something the digital world cannot: a place not just to buy or borrow books, but to be among them.”

Ted Gioia wrote about B&N: “Daunt started giving more power to the stores. But publishers complained bitterly. They now had to make more sales calls, and convince local bookbuyers—and that’s hard work. Even worse, when a new book doesn’t live up to expectations, the local workers see this immediately. Books are expected to appeal to readers—and just convincing a head buyer at headquarters was no longer enough. Daunt also refused to dumb-down the store offerings. The key challenge, he claimed was to “create an environment that’s intellectually satisfying—and not in a snobbish way, but in the sense of feeding your mind.””

Financial Times had this to say about Kitab Khana in Mumbai: “When the motorcycles, shouting hawkers and stalls sizzling with frying snacks get too much, Kitab Khana – a spacious, wood-panelled bookshop in a colonial-era building in Mumbai’s southern Fort neighbourhood – makes for welcome respite from the heat and bustle. The store, named after the palace libraries kept for Mughal emperors (it means “a home for books”), stocks an intriguing variety of Indian and international authors, including collections in languages such as Hindi and Marathi, with staff on hand to provide guidance and cosy nooks in which to read. A programme of regular talks and readings and an in-house café round out the offering.”

The world – and we adults and kids – needs more bookstores and libraries. We need to surround ourselves with good books; in times of need, they can be our friend, philosopher and guide. Even as screens chip away our free moments, we need to pull ourselves away into the world of books and bookstores – to imagine worlds we could never have dreamt of otherwise, to discover voices different from our own, and to probe ideas which challenge our thinking. The next time you want to do something different, go and spend time in a bookstore. And while there, put your mobile on ‘Airplane’ mode, pick up a book, find a comfortable spot, and read.

When people come to meet me in my office, many are overwhelmed by the wall-to-wall collection of books.

As I wrote in my earlier post on “Reading”: “I buy a lot of books. I think of myself as a book collector. I cannot and do not read every book I buy. I like to have them around knowing that some day the wisdom in that book will be useful and transformational. Books have served me well through the years: which other product gives you a person’s lifetime of knowledge for a few hundred rupees? It is we who have to make an investment many times greater – with our time – to absorb and learn. And in today’s world of instant-everything and tweet-sized content, a book is a true joy to behold. Ploughing through the daily social media feeds may seem exciting but most are empty – like junk food. They can provide that instant gratification but they do not provide the depth needed to enhance our learning. That is something only good books do.”

As a teenager, I used to get books from a nearby library. The school, college, and universities I attended had very good libraries. They became my favourite haunts – I was never much into sports and other activities. Spending a few hours reading was the best “timepass” for me. As I look back, books and BBC’s World Service on radio were my windows to the world.

I have been buying books for as long as I can remember. During my student days in the US, I joined a couple of book clubs that offered books at a discount. New York’s Strand Book Store became a regular haunt – and I searched for bargains. When I returned to India from the US, books filled up many boxes in the possessions I shipped back. And I have kept buying – Strand Book Stall in Mumbai and then Kitab Khana. Bookstores are where I love to spend time when I visit different cities; the serendipitous discovery of titles is a joyful experience.

With Abhishek, I make it a point to visit Kitab Khana once every two or three weeks. I have been taking him to bookstores ever since he was a kid. When we travel, we will spend many hours in a local bookstore. Each store is like entering a new world – the curation is different, the layout varies, and hence the experience is unique.

While my preference is for physical books, I also buy books to read on the Kindle app on my iPad – not every new book is available in physical form in India soon after release. Every inflection point in my life has a book behind it. When I am struggling through a difficult decision, it is a book which ends up providing me guidance on the way ahead. I like being surrounded by books, and every so often, I will pick up a book and browse through it – for the brief period that I am immersed in it, I am lost to the world and come out refreshed and brimming with ideas. I keep my notebook with me so I can capture the connections that reading helps me make.

For the past few years, I have started to think about the origins of some of my ideas. There is never a single ‘Eureka’ moment – in most cases there is a chain of connected conversations or events. The Velvet Rope Marketing came about when I picked up a book by Peter Fader form my bookshelf; the book itself had been bought because I chose to spend a few extra hours in New York’s Strand Book Store because my Air India flight to Mumbai had been delayed a few hours and I had to checkout from the hotel. I wrote about this in “Life’s Daily Clue” (as part of my Proficorn series), and concluded: “It is therefore important for the entrepreneur to go through many different experiences – talking to different people, reading widely, taking time off to be alone, traveling to new places. Each creates a new clue – if one knows where to look. Each prints a new dot – to be joined with others. It is from these clues that new patterns start forming.” As I think about it now, it is much more than a clue – any event can be the start of a connecting thread, which leads us to a new portal of ideas and experiences.

When we are unable to explain or connect the dots, we see it as luck. As I wrote, “At some level, decisions we make cause us to be in situations where we can get lucky. Had my initial efforts at creating a successful business not failed, I would not have started IndiaWorld. When I got an offer to sell Netcore in 2011, was it luck? And when I look back, was it good luck that the buyer backed out at the last minute? What would my life have been had I sold Netcore a decade ago? Life is all about a stream of events and decisions. What we think of luck are just decisions either we made or someone else did. At times, it is better to ascribe it to an unseen force than take up ownership especially when things are not going right!”

My broader point is that we should pay a little more attention to the connections in our lives. One event leads to another, which in turn opens another door. We have to put ourselves in places where these connections can happen. The equivalent in relationships is the idea of “weak ties”: “In social networks, you have different links — or ties — to other people. Strong ties are characterized as deep affinity; for example family, friends or colleagues. Weak ties, in contrast, might be acquaintances, or a stranger with a common cultural background. The point is that the strength of these ties can substantially affect interactions, outcomes and well-being.”

We should put ourselves in situations where our connections can expand – meetings, conferences, travels, readings, reflections. When something interesting happens, think for a few moments on how that came about, what was the chain of moments leading up to that moment. It is these connections that make life so rich and varied, so full of surprises.

As James Burke wrote, “Following the trail of events that leads from some point in the past to the emergence of a modern invention that affects our lives is like being involved in a detective story, in which the reader will know at any particular stage in the story’s development only as much as did the people of the time. As each story unfolds it will become clear that history is not, as we are so often led to believe, a matter of great men and lonely geniuses pointing the way to the future from their ivory towers. At some point every member of society is involved in the process by which innovation and change comes about, and this book may help to show that given average intelligence and the information available to the innovators of the past, any reader could have matched their achievements.”

Our life is a story of connections. I have seen this in my life. There are many in my life that have materialised a sequence of events that has changed the course for me. Whether it was the sale of IndiaWorld or my entry into the world of politics, it is the “connections” that have made all the difference.

Many years ago, my friend Atanu discussed the book “Connections” by James Burke. It is about the flow of history and events – how seemingly small developments had a big impact, how one thing led to another in ways completely unexpected. As Burke writes:

In some way or other, each one of us affects the course of history. Because of the extraordinarily serendipitous way change happens, something you do during the course of today may eventually change the world.

As you will see in this book, ordinary people have often made the difference. A self-educated Scottish mechanic once made a minor adjustment to a steam pump and triggered the whole Industrial Revolution. A nineteenth-century weatherman developed a cloud-making device that just happened to reveal to Ernest Rutherford, a physicist he knew, that the atom could be split. Thanks to a guy working on hydraulic pressure in Italian Renaissance water gardens we have the combustion engine. So you don’t have to be Einstein to make your mark on events. We all contribute.

This is because there’s no grand design to the way history goes. The process does not fall neatly into categories such as those we are taught in school. For example, most of the elements contributing to the historical development of transportation had nothing to do with vehicles. So there are no rules for how to become an influential participant on the web of change. There is no right way. Equally, there is no way to guarantee that your great project meant to alter the course of history will ever succeed.

… This book looks at the forces at work in making the connections that brought into existence some of the most powerful tools and systems that drive the world today: the computer, spacecraft, the production line, television, atomic weapons, plastics, telecommunications, and aircraft. Each of these innovations emerged as the result of a closely linked sequence of events taking place on the great web of history that links us all to each other, to the past, and (in the way that each of us triggers change) to the future.

While Burke writes about the connections that lead technological innovations, the same principle also applies in our life. A chance meeting, a passage in a book, a presentation at a conference – anything can have an impact on the course of our lives. There is a connectedness that at times we don’t see or recognise, but when we look back, we can trace the origins of our ideas and therefore our actions. This is much more than luck – it’s the sequence of events that take place and guide us along; we remember the last one or two, but rarely do we trace the chain back to the origin.

When I was at a low point in life after multiple business failures, I picked up a book, “Competing for the Future” by CK Prahalad and Gary Hamel. As I read it, the business plan for what became IndiaWorld fell in place – leading to a monumental transformation of my future. A few years later, a random conversation with Bhavana in a car journey from Nakoda ji to Jodhpur led to the creation of multiple Indian-named websites. A blog post read by a person I did not know connected me to Atanu who mentioned the Burke book which made me think about the connections in our lives and which is the subject of this post!

For the past many years, I have looked forward to June – because that is when Bhavana, Abhishek and I go on our vacations. Before Abhishek was born, our vacations were whenever we wanted. But once he started school, we had to adhere to his calendar. For me, vacations were the time I got to spend much more time with Abhishek – without the overhang of work.

Our favourite vacation destination is New York. Every third year or so, it has been the place where we will spend 10-12 days. We don’t go around much – at best, day trips to places like Boston, Washington or Philadelphia. NY is a city I know well from my days at Columbia. I don’t drive; so that’s a constraint on where we can go. Jain food is not a problem in New York. And all three of us have something to do. For me, it’s just the joy of walking around the avenues and taking in the sights of the city. In the past few vacations, Abhishek and I took the subway to faraway destinations – especially those lines which travel overground.

Among other cities, Singapore is another favourite and repeat destination. We always stay at the Shangri-La Apartments – they have a nice kitchenette, another requirement given our food constraints. Its proximity to Orchard Road is also good; Kinokuniya, one of the largest bookstores I have seen, is just a few minutes walk. Among other vacation spots: Hong Kong, Bangkok, London, Dubai, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney. Common to all of them: they are all big cities! We are not much for the rural, countryside feel. A vacation we did a few years was Tokyo. While I had been to Tokyo a couple times on work before, this time around we spent time seeing the city. We also took the bullet train on a day trip to the other end of Japan to Kanazawa, a beautiful ride from the east to the west (and back).

Many of our India vacations tend to be around religious spots with the extended family. Jain temples abound, and are architectural marvels also. These tend to be shorter trips. When Abhishek was younger, we had also done a few Club Mahindra vacations – while the properties were great, the access roads from the nearest airport was always a challenge. I think this situation has probably improved a lot in the past decade.

Before Abhishek was born, Bhavana and I vacationed a lot in Bangkok. A few hours by flight, and we were in a city like Mumbai but with a lot more shopping options! It wasn’t expensive to travel, stay or shop. We liked visiting the various markets and huge malls. This was in the late 1990s and early 2000s – when the shopping options in Mumbai or even India were quite limited.

For me, vacations with family are all about ensuring that they have a good time; it is about planning and anticipating. (My ‘vacations’ are when I travel on work!) From the choice of hotel to the itinerary, my focus is to ensure happy memories with the adequate surprises. Some of my best moments have been with Abhishek, answering his never-ending stream of questions.

With Abhishek grown-up and off to university in the US soon, maybe the next vacations will be more diverse for Bhavana and me – so much of the world yet to see, absorb and learn from.

Nothing irritates me more than seeing a slide filled with decimals. How does it matter whether an open rate of emails was 11.43% — instead of just 11? Does it really make a difference if growth is 23.71% — why not just say 24%? And yet, the world seems to have decided that every unit – before or after a decimal point is equally important and must be shown. Watch a slide with 50 digits and not a single one of them becomes memorable. The mental effort to read 76.53 is so much more than just 76, and yet few get it – because Excel or a calculator can provide an endless flow of decimals, the belief is that every fractional unit matters.

While the decimals don’t matter, the commas do! So many times I see a string like 3456321 and I have to then look closely and mentally insert the commas to get a sense of the largeness. And in India, where to put the comma is also a lingering question – lakhs and crores or millions and billions. I keep telling my colleagues to show the most significant digits and then round off. Does it matter if we sent 19,761,891,123 emails – when there is the simpler alternative of 20 billion (and not even 19.7)?

We have too many numbers all around us – punctuated by decimals and commas, numbers which we glaze over, which we see for a fleeting moment because there is another string next to it competing for our attention! It is time for “Making Numbers Count”, as a recent book by Chip Heath and Karla Starr suggests. Each of us needs a lesson in numeracy, As the authors write: “we lose information when we don’t translate numbers into instinctive human experience. We do hard, often painstaking work to generate the right numbers to help make a good decision—but all that work is wasted if those numbers never take root in the minds of the decision makers. As lovers of numbers, we find this tragic. The work that is being done to understand the most meaningful things in the world—ending poverty, fighting disease, conveying the scale of the universe, telling a heartbroken teen how many other times they will fall in love—is being lost because of the lack of translation.”

Some of the book’s recommendations are a good place to begin:

• Simpler Is Better: Round with Enthusiasm.
• Concrete Is Better: Use Whole Numbers to Describe Whole Objects, Not Decimals, Fractions, or Percentages.
• Follow the Rules But Defer to Expertise. Rules 1 and 2 May be Trumped by Expert Knowledge.
• Recast Your Number in Different Dimensions: Try Time, Space, Distance, Money, and Pringles.

In life and in business, understanding the importance of numbers and communicating them in a way which makes it easier for others to remember matters. In Netcore, with our multiple business lines, there are plenty of numbers in our periodic reviews. What we have done is aligned everyone around a single number, the North Star Metric. For us, that is the exit MRR (monthly recurring revenue) of our Platform business.

I am reminded of a headline in a business paper which said, “XXX profit up 300%.” Read the fine print, and what the company had done was grow its profit from 1 crore to 4 crore, an almost insignificant and irrelevant increase given the revenue base of a few thousand crores!

Make it a mission to simplify the numbers around us – and communicate what matters.

Except for the few years that I spent in the US, Mumbai has been home. From education (school, college and undergrad) to 30+ years of entrepreneurship (and building two proficorns) – Mumbai has been with me through all my ups and downs. I have lived in the same neighbourhood in South Mumbai for the past 50 years – with one change of apartment. The name changed along the way from Bombay, but the city did not (in a positive way). It is what has given me my happiest moments and best memories. It is, as has been variously said, the city of dreams, the city that never sleeps. Much like the only other city where I have spent maximum time – New York. Yes, the traffic moves slowly, the trains are always crowded, the construction all around seems to have shrunk the roads – all gets taken in one’s stride as this is a city of motion, constant movement, and a propelling energy. Mumbai has imparted its own character to me – like it does to most others who make it their home.

I grew up with the centrality of the BEST bus in my life. Every commute was by bus. The train became a part of life when I went for my IIT Agrawal classes to Dadar, and then during IIT days where I had a decision to make each time – Western (via Andheri) or Central (via Kanjur Marg or Vikhroli). When I started working, it was the roads and the car. The bus and train became joyrides after Abhishek was born; they were the ‘best’ way for him to show the city I loved and which was now his.

The theatres and now the multiplexes swept me away into different worlds. The restaurants whose menus I have memorised are the much-needed weekly diversions – Swati to Status, New Yorker to Cream Centre, Quattro to Spice Klub, Soam to Govinda. The 5-stars of Taj, Trident and Oberoi are where I have done innumerable meetings. The malls enchant – Atria for a short time with their food court, and then Phoenix. The never-far-away sea adds to the beauty. The airports and their various avatars through the years were the start and end points of journeys, each with a mission filled with hope and optimism. And of course, the bookstores – Strand and then Kitab Khana. On the occasional afternoon when Abhishek and I walk around the Fountain area, I am transported back to my IndiaWorld days – every street brings up a past of meetings and customers. Those were the days before Zoom and mass mobiles and inboxes; appointments had to be taken on phone and deals had to be struck in person. Mumbai gave me my first breaks.

For the past two decades, work has been at Lower Parel – what used to be the mills area of Mumbai, ripped apart by strikes. Today, it is a crowded, happening place – yet another testimony at the constant reinvention that the city undergoes. The various infra projects now will once again transform, connecting points which earlier seemed distant – just like the flyovers and the Sea Link did. It is a city of change – and even as it changes, it also changes each one of us who cannot imagine life anywhere else. Mumbai was, is, and will be part of my ‘life system’.