OCD...

It was 12:37 PM!

"Enough time to get a cup of coffee before my next meeting," I thought.

I picked up my phones from my desk and as I started walking towards the elevator (I work on the 11th floor), I opened the Starbucks App on both my phones, checked to make sure that both had refreshed to the same messages / look-and-feel on the feed (a little quirk that some may call OCD)!

I hit "Pay" on both phones, smiled when I noted the balance, hit order on both phones and when the Starbucks App on my Comcast provided mobile phone did not locate the Starbucks in Comcast Center as the closest location to order from, I completed my order of a Tall Latte with 2 Shots (aka Double Tall Latte), with a few clicks of my right thumb on my personal mobile phone.

I was pleasantly surprised to see no customers (forget no line) when I arrived at the Starbucks store (in the lobby) and even happier when within a minute of arriving, the barista said, "Bala, your Double Tall Latte." It gave me sufficient time to get back to my desk, pick up my computer and walk over to one of our VPs' offices for my 1 PM meeting.

I should've probably expected it, given it was lunch hour and not many people would choose to get coffee at that time (especially if they had already had 3 cups since 5 AM)!

Most importantly, it gave me that extra moment to make sure the Starbucks logo on the brown sleeve aligned with the Starbucks logo on the white cup, after I had added to my hot drink, 1 packet of raw sugar and stirred it well with 2 wooden stirrers.

Trust me, it's not even my worst OCD!

I think that started with Numerology...

Even as my mother suggested I spell my name Lakshminarayan (and not the more common Lakshminarayanan), it occurred to me that numbers would play an important role in my life.

10 (my birth date) was lucky and so were 1 (the sum of the digits of my birth date) and for some reason, also 7 and 9.

It was when we started winning competitions every time my partner on the college Dumb Charades team picked a number (to decide the order in which we would take the stage), that that "5" became my luckiest number!

Now, lucky numbers are one thing but when you start adding up the digits of the time in hours and minutes to ensure you send an email (especially important ones) only when it adds up to 1, 5, 7 or 9, YOU NEED HELP.

Even shrinks would give up on me if they hear my restaurant routine!

For, every time I receive the check, I do the math in my head to make sure the tip (10 to 15% usually), adds up to make the total amount a perfect dollar figure (no cents please). If the dollar number ends in 5 or 0, it's sheer ecstasy...

As I started my walk back to the elevator after I got a new lid from the barista (the original one had fallen in the trash as I removed it to add the raw sugar), I pulled out my phone (only one this time as my right hand held my coffee), opened the Starbucks App and hit "Pay".

One of the reasons I love the Starbucks App experience is how quickly they refresh the data, and it gave me immense joy to note that, the balance, which was now showing $0.00, had been $4.27 (the exact price of a Tall Latte with 2 shots) before I ordered the coffee.

Tell me please, should I be worried?


P.S. I'm posting this at exactly 11.50!

Prodigy...

"And you're talking to the  Product Head!," he said, after he had just finished demonstrating the '5 Paisa' App to me, his elder cousin of 15 years, whom he was probably meeting after 5. He didn't try to hide his pride.

Santosh Jayaram was always the prodigy of the family. Innately gifted, he picked up the art of classical Indian dance at a very tender age by just accompanying his sister to her weekly dance lessons.

His true calling (I thought) though, was music! His voice could melt hearts and just when one thought that he would soon challenge the Jambavans of Indian classical vocal music, he chose the Veena as his instrument of musical expression.

Years of relentless practice (accompanied by his mother, my aunt's, incessant nagging) saw him grow from performances at family do's to concert halls and stages across the big cities of India, as part of his fusion band 'Agyna' and accompanying stalwarts and legends of world music.

"Music could be his career. Life!", I said, when my aunt worried (as she does for everything) about where he would be placed as part of  campus recruitment at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, where he was just about to complete his dual degree in Engineering and Business.

I encouraged her to get comfortable with the fact that he may have no real job and even asked her to get ready to travel with him as he went from one world stage to another. In my own mind, I had built him up to be the one, not to take the beaten path in a family full of Engineers!

Not only was I able to quickly relate to the app, but also provide one little point of view, because (as I explained to him), I am myself in the middle of the process of leading a change in the mobile app experience of the Home Security / Connected Home brand that I work for.

"How is Agnya?" I asked, as our conversation continued. I wasn't sure what the expression on his face meant, but he quickly clarified it saying he'd hardly found time for anything other than work in a while, leave alone music.

Watching him pore over his emails (from his ipad) over the next few minutes, in that hotel room, while on vacation to attend another cousin's wedding, made me wonder where I had gone wrong!

All this while I had thought that his software job was only a means to make his ends meet and waited for the day he would announce that he was quitting his software career to pursue music full time.

And here he was, having embraced 'FinTech' (an expression he used to describe his line of work) whole-heartedly and at all of 28, carrying the responsibility of a Rs. 100 crore backed wealth & investment management product on his young and able shoulders.

The music's still there! He let me savor a few aalapanas, once as we were seated right next to the Nagaswaram troupe at the cousin's wedding and once as the radio played during a car ride. 

The prodigiousness just seems to be being put to use elsewhere for now...