6 AM Pacific

Be There or Be Square

I used to do a lot of theater in school and college. So much so that I remember a conversation I had with a Psychology professor at IIT (I also did every Humanities course I could!) about how I could combine my interest in active theater with a career.

Well, it never panned out. I never stepped on a stage after entering the work force. But recently, as I take a break from full-time work, an opportunity came my way via a friend and I jumped on it. On July 23rd, the curtain goes up on 30 Days in September. This play by Mahesh Dattani is easily the most intense, powerful play I have ever done. At 70 minutes it is compact. There are only four actors (though I play four roles!). The other three actors and the director Rooben Morgan, are all experienced pros (unlike me!)

If you live in the Bay Area or are visiting, please come see the play. There are seven shows in San Francisco. More details can be found here. Tickets are available here.

An Update

Some readers have asked for an update on the book. So I’ll start with that first.

Gaurav and I started out thinking of the book as a “How To” book on Offshore Services. But as we started writing it, it was turning out to be like writing a technical book – dry, precise and meant for the practitioner. In short, not a whole lot of fun.

I spoke to a well-known writer whose own book went through a little bit of a metamorphosis as well. Her advice was to write the book that you want to and will love to.

So we switched tracks and started thinking about a book that would be useful, widely read but also fun to write. A book about the Offshore industry that would go into all the issues and challenges facing it today and in the future. But it would be simply written so that even readers outside the industry could appreciate it.

That’s the book idea we took to Penguin. They liked it and they will publish the book in India in 2011. We plan to simultaneously self-publish with Amazon for markets outside the sub-continent.

On the personal front things have made a big U turn with my son Naren, who I wrote about a few months ago. In April the school district allowed him to attend regular school, but a different school. Yesterday was his last day at Hopkins Jr. High. We were confident that Naren would do well, but he exceeded all expectations. Not a single behavioural incident and every teacher had good things to say about him. In a new school, in just a short period of time, he made friends. The boy was determined to do well and he succeeded with flying colors. He also got a 4.0 for the last term. He now feels very confident that he can overcome his challenges and succeed in life.

There was good news outside of school too. Naren was accepted into the music composition summer program of the SF Conservatory. It is a prestigious program that’s hard to get into. He is absolutely thrilled about it. He now has a channel on YouTube where his compositions for the piano are posted. He also writes frequently on his blog at narenpradhan.wordpress.com about video games, scripts for TV shows and environmental issues.

Our battle with the school district to get Naren the right placement and services has been long and hard. It is not over yet but the worst is behind us. My wife and I can now start thinking about a future where life catches some kind of a groove.

A couple of other updates. I am doing a conference along with BRICS Securities which is slated for August in Mumbai. The conference will look at the long-term trends and issues in the Offshore Services industry. We are in the process of confirming the panelists for the panel discussions. I’ll post an update as we cover more ground.

In college I was very active in dramatics. Since graduating, I have wanted to, but have never had the time to commit to doing a play. Well, an opportunity came my way recently and I grabbed it. Who knows if I’ll ever have the time again.

The play [link is now updated] is a Mahesh Dattani play called “30 Days in September”. We will be doing eight shows in San Francisco in July. If you live here, I hope you’ll come.

What I Am Upto

While things keep me occupied on the personal front, I have been refashioning my professional work to fit it. And it’s been going surprisingly well.

First, I have started taking on consulting work. Most of it is strategy and business performance related work and it is quite energizing and interesting. Most of it is of course in the Offshore Services industry where I can bring my experience to bear upon problems that managements are facing as growth levels off in the industry and companies really have to compete for business.

Second, I am writing a book. Some people want to be able to bungee jump before they die. For me it was writing a book. “Regret minimization”, to paraphrase Jeff Bezos.

The book is going to a business book about the Offshore Services industry. Not a history, more of a guide or a how to book on the market side of the business. My co-conspirator on the project is my good friend Gaurav Rastogi. (Check out his recent posts on Afterlife – thoughtful, creative stuff.)

The reason we are writing this book is that we feel that for a $50 B industry there is little out there in terms of a body of knowledge on the Offshore Services industry. Sure, there’s a lot on software engineering and quality, but not on how to run the business itself. We hope to make a contribution to that body of knowledge.

Anyway, details will follow as we make some progress. If anyone is willing to contribute their ideas or just anecdotes, we’re very keen to talk to people outside our circle of acquaintances which naturally is skewed towards Infosys or ex-Infosys people. Any ideas on publishing – in India and in the US – will also help.

My Son and Asperger’s Syndrome

Autism is in the news. My Name is Khan was released last weekend. The movie takes on some important topics (Asperger’s, religion based profiling). The movie was very average, but any movie with SRK in it is automatically big news.

The other big news is that the American Psychiatric Association has recommended that Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) be dropped from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Asperger’s Syndrome will be subsumed under Autism and will disappear as a separate diagnosis altogether.

The reason for this change, from an op-ed in the New York Times:

The change is welcome, because careful study of people with Asperger’s has demonstrated that the diagnosis is misleading and invalid, and there are clear benefits to understanding autism as one condition that runs along a spectrum.

Several NYT readers have written in, most of them against such a move.

Elsewhere, a new movie about Temple Grandin, an autistic inventor and writer was released by HBO this month.

All in all, a very active month for Autism. Which is good. My son, Naren, has Asperger’s Syndrome. We welcome the light that is being shone on Autism and AS. Autism is not well understood in schools and by the general public. Since the most important deficiencies among Aspies (as they are called) are social deficits, and the incidence of Autism is the highest it has ever been, society benefits from a better understanding of Autism.

In the US today, 1 out of 150 kids get a diagnosis of Autism. That is a very high incidence of a disorder of any kind. In fact, there is some thinking that the genetic traits that are responsible for Autism are far more widespread than we think. In many people, the compulsive need to create order is actually a symptom of a muted Autism trait. Tyler Cowen an economist has a book out which is partly about the need for Autistics to impose order on a disorderly world. The question arises as to how Autism traits could be so widespread in the face of evolution and natural selection. The answer, some people suspect, is that in some ways Autistic traits can offer benefits and therefore increase evolutionary “fitness”.

Undeniably, there are many talented and famous people who, it is thought, were Autistic. Albert Einstein and Emily Dickinson, for instance. Vernon Smith, a Nobel prize winner in Economics, considers himself to be autistic. A five minute interview of Smith on CNBC is here.

That Autistic children can be talented is not something I need convincing about. My son Naren was identified very early as a GATE student (gifted program in California). In eighth grade, while he was having all his problems at school, he was still pulling straight As in his Honors courses. He writes with clarity and maturity [the link was wrong. fixed now]. And he is a talented musician. He plays the piano, the trumpet and the guitar and has composed four delightful pieces for the piano. Here’s one.

Harpsichord Hero

We are so proud of Naren’s achievements. But Naren also has problems. Like most autistic children, he doesn’t automatically learn the norms of social interaction. He stands out in a group of children. His interests – music, DC comics, manga – are deep and narrow. He has no interest in sports. It’s tough for him to make friends.

In middle school, Naren also started showing behavior problems. Teenage and Asperger’s didn’t mix well for him. Many things now frustrate and anger him. Last year he started having anger outbursts. The problem grew to where the school district didn’t think he could continue in mainstream education. We disagreed and are negotiating for the placement we think he deserves.

We know Naren will get better and be successful. He is of course, getting the inputs he needs – doctor, therapy, group work and a lot of love and support from his family. But most importantly, Naren himself, really wants to get better.

Till very recently, we never got a definitive diagnosis of AS from any doctor. Naren’s AS is typical in many ways, and atypical in others. But now, a clear AS diagnosis from both his doctor and neuropsychologist is actually a relief. That is the power of a category, or a label. Naren can now be told that he is an Aspie. He and we can now relate his condition to thousands of other Aspies. We are now part of the AS community. The resources – treatments, therapies, books, online support – available to AS kids are now available to Naren. As a descriptor – Autism is just too broad and fuzzy. On the other hand, Asperger’s is a single word that gets you very much in the neighbourhood of where Naren is.

Which is why we will keep calling it Asperger’s regardless of what they do with the DSM. I suspect most people with AS will too. People want to identify with a group with shared characteristics, which is why the group is formed in the first place. If those characteristics are shared weakly, the strength of the group identity weakens too.

We took Naren to see MNIK. In the first 15 minutes he said “I’m not like him at all.” But at the end of the movie he said “This was the best movie I have ever seen. It was all about me.”