4 February
2017
4 February
2017
An adventurous spirit!
How do you teach Project Management for Supply Chain Management in a novel way? Dr. Javadpour’s approach was surely unique. She told her students that they were going to help a needy old couple by breaking down their bathroom and rebuild it and make it handicapped friendly. That started a 6 week long intense planning phase where the students had to do everything – from raising funds to understanding what construction was all about and then on the final day they reconstructed the bathroom in 6 hours flat from grounds up! The students were so taken in by the challenge of the project management of a real life project that most of them were working early morning to late night without being asked to. To the point that their other professors had to ask Roya what was she up to!! Apparently, she has offered that course 12 times in all (in CalPoly) and has been nationally recognized.
That was how our conversation started when I finally managed to meet up with her last week. First, she had to plough thru 2 hours of traffic. I gave her a way out but she insisted on meeting. We missed each other the last few times we tried. Roya and I worked in the same team in a supply chain company and frankly I cannot even remember when I saw her last – 2001?? After she left, I again got in touch with her thru FB much later.
And from her occasional posts, I realized that she followed an interesting and very adventurous life. I would call her to wish her a happy birthday and I would realize that she was in Vietnam or Thailand or Turkey and so on. In 2012, I suddenly got a message from her that she would be in India with a few of her students and wanted to know what should be visiting while there.
What I learnt last week was very interesting. Roya goes to all sorts of exciting places and explores them without much of planning from before hand. (I know, she is the one who was recognized nationally for her project management class 🙂 ). She buys one way ticket to a country and goes around exploring. During that process she crosses country boundaries and one fine day, when she thinks she has had enough, she buys a ticket to return. Another method I found was she would buy a one way ticket to country A and then a return ticket from country B without any prior plans of figuring out how to go from country A to country B.
I remember one of those birthday calls, she let me know that she could not get into Greece from Turkey (some visa related issues), so was trying to figure out How to return home!!
“So, what were you doing in India?”, I asked.
“Oh! We went to the Himalayas”.
“Trekking?”, I continued.
“No. We were there to build septic tanks and showers for a small village up in the mountains”.
I have to say – I was pretty impressed. I go to India four times a year and never ever have I attempted to build a septic tank!! 🙂
With the vast life experiences she has gained, I had to ask my inevitable question –
“So, what is the life lesson I can learn from you?”.
She thought for a second and said – “Enjoy the journey. Destinations are overrated. Life is all about the journeys to those destinations.”
Thank you Roya, for a wonderful evening. And thank you for taking the pains of tolerating two hours of traffic on 405.
4 February
2017
Qawwali of the evening – “Bhar do Jholi”
The original proponent of this qawwali were the Sabri brothers. Today, I was listening to the version by Amjad Sabri (son of the younger Sabri brothers). The poem was penned by Purnam Allahabadi. Born originally in India in Allahabad as Mohammad Musa, he later migrated to Pakistan after the partition.
“Jholi” refers to the bag that a beggar carries to collect alms.
“Bhar do jholi meri ya Muhammad
Laut kar main na jaaoonga khaali
Tumhaare aastane se zamaana kya naheen paata
Koi bhi dar se khaali maangne waala naheen jaata”
Roughly translated (please feel free to offer better suggestions – this is not my mother tongue)
“Fill my bag, O Muhammad
I will not go back empty-handed
What does the world not receive at your doorstep
No one who comes asking at your door leaves empty-handed”
4 February
2017
Too funny!!!
4 February
2017
From the bartender’s corner – Gin #3: Dutch Courage
There is a very interesting story behind the name. First of all “Dutch courage” is an English phrase which means “strength or confidence gained from drinking alcohol”. The story goes that the during the Thirty Years War (early half of the seventeenth century) – one of the most devastating wars in Europe – the English soldiers were impressed by the bravery-inducing effects (both by warming the bodies in cold weather and numbing the nerves) of genever (predecessor of gin) on Dutch soldiers and gave the drink the name “Dutch Courage”.
Dutch Courage Gin (which is not genever or Old Tom style but the traditional London dry style) was started by Fred Van Zuidam more than 40 years back near Baarle-Hertog which is on the south side of Netherlands – very close to the border of Belgium. In fact, very close to the Flanders area which is acknowledged to be the birthplace of gin.
One of the coolest facts about Zuidam’s distillery is that his is the only distillery in the world that still uses windmills to mill the grains!! The grain of choice is barley. Unlike most London Dry gins – however, like many other gins from the Netherlands, this gin too is barrel aged. And because of that, to me at least, it was closer to an Old Tom than a modern gin.
The botanicals include the staple components – juniper (interestingly, from Italy), coriander and angelica. On top of that, it has orange, lemon, licorice root, cardamom pods, vanilla and iris root. The nose is anything but simple – due to the barrel aging and the botanicals and the flavor is distinctly citrusy. The juniper comes thru much later. The finish is a little bittersweet.
I tried on the rocks and with Indian Tonic water. The latter was more enjoyable.
