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Don't Worry. Be Angry

As I stepped out of my house this morning at 6 ‘O clock, I got really angry. Not because I got up early. Not because I didn't have my tea on time. It was because a person on his bicycle loudly singing a song, that too a Hindi song, much worse than I sing. Nowadays at home I attempt to sing a Hindi song when I get angry. I could not do that as it was in the middle of the road. I could not vent out my anger!

I had a peculiar habit in my childhood. I used to bite my right hand when I used to get angry. More angry, more severe was the bite. Luckily I could stop that “good” habit when I was at the age of around nine or ten. Otherwise I would have eaten up both my hands by this time.

I have an uncle. FaceBook is designed for him, though he does not use it. He has only one expression on his face, smile. Like the “like” emotion in FB. I have never seen him showing his anger, for that matter sadness or even surprise. My cousin Thambi and I had gone to his house, our initial days in Bangalore. After a delicious lunch cooked by aunt, we decided to take a nap in the hall. As we were about to get sleep, “tuku tuku  tuku” some noise disturbed us. “No my dear do not disturb them while trying to sleep” my uncle requested his little one. The little one was playing with 7 lever Navatal lock hanging on the iron trunk! A few minutes went by. Little one asks “appa, just one more time?”. Uncle says “OooooK”. Again “tuku tuku tuku tuku tuku tuku.. “ much more rigorously this time. This went on for some more time. Such a nice, soft and lenient person is my uncle.

I had visited this “soft” uncle’s house subsequently. Uncle just stepped out to buy something. The kids started talking a bit loudly. Aunt came and announced “don’t disturb Sundarannu, when appa comes I will tell him and he will get angry and do the needful”. The little one started crying, he was scared of his appa’s anger. So powerful is my uncle’s anger, he need not have to be expressive about it.

My friend Rick, another soft spoken person. Rare breed, knows thoroughly both the technology and business, extremely intelligent.  We were together in Waukesha, Milwaukee at a customer location supporting their applications. Rick being a local person, he used to take me to many “interesting” places around. No one ever used to raise voice with him, because he was nice, knowledgeable, and extremely helpful.  A new boss arrived. In that Friday afternoon meeting he got angry and shouted at Rick in front of us for a minor issue.  Rick kept quiet, no emotions what so ever. No excuses either.

That same day evening I wrote my new workplace location code on the stickers provided and stuck on all my belongings, chair, carton of books etc. Yes, our office was getting shifted to a new place a few miles away in the same location.We were asked to label all our belongings that to be carried to new place by the movers. I decided to check what Rick was up to. Rick had completed all his labeling work. “Come, I will show you what I am going to do”, he took me along. First he went and found the destination workplace code of his new boss –“72B”. Picked up a few stickers and wrote “72B” in all those stickers. Went around and stuck them onto many items around. Weekend got over, we all reached the new office well in time, highly excited! I saw the new boss fuming outside his work area. Apart from his own chair and a few belongings there were many other useless items scattered on the ground – two broken chairs, one old defunct printer, a shabby water container and many such things. The mover fellow did a super job looking only at those labels, without using his brain – does he have to use it at all ? Rick had a way to respond to his boss who was unreasonably angry.

This story I remember reading in a Malayalam publication, many years back, with due acknowledgement to who ever be the author of this, let me try to reproduce it. Sankaran was his name, was coming back after a busy day. A friend of his meets him on the way. Friend asks “ how are you Sankaran, must be returning from Ettumamoor?”. Sankaran got really angry “Who are you to ask me this question? I can go where ever I wish to. That is none of your business”. The friend did not understand why Sankaran was  angry for asking a simple obvious question, Ettumanoor is a nearby place where people often go -  to the famous temple to pray to Shiva and it was "Ezharaponnaana ( procession on 71/2 gold elephants, special occasion)  that day”. But the friend did not realize that Sankaran was actually returning from his secret wife’s house ( chinna veedu in Tamil ! ) located in Ettumanoor ! People might get provoked for things which you would have never meant!

You might have heard of Durvasa Maharshi who was famous for his anger and his curses on anyone who annoyed him. But good thing was he could also be quickly appeased. And he himself would suggest people a way out of the curse. Hope we all are like that, hope we could ourselves find a way out from the damages caused by our anger.

One thing is sure, anger is inevitable. It is natural. In certain instances if you don't show your anger others will sit on your head. So get angry as required. However one need to control the emotions to reduce the damage. Do not try to suppress it too much if it burns with in you, just vent it out.  Just express it. But never bite your that right hand. With lots of conviction I can say – it hurts !!!

Stitched in velvet cloth

“Get that perfect messed-up hair style. It just takes 10 minutes to get that tousled hair look”. 

You must be guessing today’s discussion is on hair style. 

I had written what is seen in Bangalore Times ( that colorful supplementary of Times of India ) today’s edition. I read that once in a while to tell myself that I am not that old. In fact I watched “Baby Doll” song from Ragini MMS 2 movie (not sure whether its an album), yesterday. Tried to watch it and saw it full. There was a caption at the beginning of the song “You are not too old”. I passed my “youngness” test. Though only part of lyric I remember is “Zandu Balm” somewhere. You may also try to check your fitness by trying to watch that song.

Now you must be guessing the topic today is “aging”. Keep guessing !

I went and stood in front of the mirror to see how tousled my hair style is. Not bad, the remaining few on the head are in a haphazard way as usual. But I could see more grey in those few ones. Yes, age is catching up with me.

I always try to forget my age, but can’t. I see grey hair on my head, I may see none in the near future as all the remaining will also fall. Before I recover from that shock, I get email on credit card statement. Password to be given to open the pdf is four letters of my name appended with my date of birth in DDMMYY format. Double shock, hefty payment due and age. I login to ICICIDIRECT to check how my stocks are doing. Password plus I should give PAN or Date of Birth. Tripple shock - crashed stocks, IT dues and again my age. Finally decided to write my blog( sundaresh1963.blogspot.com) My blog domain tells my year of birth, I myself had given that as domain with my name was not available. So appended my year of birth. Multiple shocks, as many as 49 number of shocks, (all my posts) in the blogspace and my age !

The more I try to forget my age, the more I am reminded of it.

Yes, your guess is right. I am going to talk about “forgetfulness” today.

Humans are blessed with two unique things. The ability to laugh and the ability to forget something that they remember most. You have seen politicians giving you tall promises and then forget. They have not forgotten. They have those fresh in their memory, to be used in same words or paraphrased for the next elections. And it is we who forget those promises when we vote him again, after seeing our roads getting tarred with 1 mm thick tar, 3 months before next elections.

In Mahabharata, Karna had to pay heavy price for his forgetfulness. Not that he deliberately did it. He was cursed by Parashu Rama, his guru , for hiding the truth from him that Karna was a Kshatriya. The curse was that Karna would forget his skills when he needed them most.

I have many forgetful incidents in my Purana too !

I had gone to manager to approve my travel. Somebody had told me that company would allow us to start the journey from home town - need not be Bangalore, so I wanted to fly COCHIN-CHENNAI-SINGAPORE. “No No, we do not allow such things” the manager lifted phone and consulted HR guy. HR team had forgotten to inform him of this new change. I got approval, went to Cochin to attend the festival at Cochin Thirumala Devsthana, our temple. Many events happen during that festival, two I don’t miss. The feast with coconut rich dishes gassi, valval, alchakarry ( these are unique preparations made by Konkani’s in Kerala ) is one. The second one is the procession on “Gold Garuda” chariot late in the night. That time Feast, Procession all over, next day I was supposed to fly out. I had forgotten to check the itinerary. I had seen the start date flying out from Chennai was correct. It remained correct but the departure time was 12:15 AM. The flight had already gone !

This below one is a fiction, told by one of my uncles.

“Emjee”, is the name of the hero, stout, round, short gentleman needless to say with a potbelly. He gets an underpants stitched in velvet cloth, that too very expensive cloth. To wear under his white dothi. ( people who don’t know what dothi is – it is the stuff our defense minster or finance minister normally wear instead of pants). 3 months pass by, Emjee thinks “ a few washes already over I need to show this costly underpants to people before its shining goes off”. That day Emjee sets out, in his dothi he folds it and ties above knee level to show a bit of that velvet stuff. Nobody is looking at it. He raises the dothi bit by bit till people start giving him a dirty look. Emjee presumes it is because of jealousy. He returns home, opens the gate, he finds what? “ his own velvet underpants hanging on the ropes after the third wash by his wife”.

Whether one is forgetful or not, he needs to keep one thing  in mind - if he tries to show off with bit of slight brilliance he possesses, he might be exposed, literally!

Forgive but never Forget. We all know this. But this is something I just cannot practice. My wife ( how can I forget my wife in this discussion on forgetfulness? ) does this well. The maid will be late as usual. She will be cursing her “Let her come today I will give my piece of mind. Are we also not giving her money? She is always late and moreover she does not do a good job at all”. Maid comes half an hour later than usual late time, looking totally tired. My wife sympathises “ Enamma meyyu usharillva?” ( are you not keeping well in Kannada). The maid will start the work even less enthusiastically. My wife forgives her but never forgets. Next day, she remembers everything and gets ready for next forgiving session.

If you are able to forgive without forgetting, that is great.

To me if somebody stabs or back stabs, either way stab is a stab and it inflicts wounds, I need to forget fully those stabs before I can forgive, healing the wounds alone will not help. My way of thinking is that in order to be sincere in forgiving somebody, one needs to forget what all had happened. I sincerely try to forget what had happened to forgive! I am not sure whether I am right or wrong.

Talented thoughts

Music as a bond – “Sarojini Trust in Rajasthan and Kalkeri Sangeet Vidyalaya near Dharwad may be quite apart geographically, but have a common passion and focus. While the trust in Rajasthan aims to support the musically rich but economically and socially backward Mirasi community, the school near Dharwad aims to empower disadvantaged children through education and Hindustani music” – Hindu news paper today.

Talent is something someone gets as a gift by birth. People will not get it by practice alone. Music is just one example.

I had thought I had talent in music till the age of 9. We used to get those leisure periods in school and that time was effectively used by our teacher to make us show our extra talent. First occasion I volunteered myself and sang a Malayalam movie song “Guruvayoor Ambala Nadayil….”. Second occasion came I sang another song “Karimukil Kaattile…..”. These two songs went on for almost 3 months in whichever leisure period we got. I was honestly thinking I was doing a great job. Finally my teacher came to me and said “Sundar, why don’t you learn and sing a new song next time?” I was innocent enough to tell this new finding by my teacher to folks back at home, even now I am ragged for that incident whenever I open my mouth in attempting to sing a song!  Now I know - for a song, it needs tune, rhythm and correct lyrics, bare minimum requirement. I don’t think I was no way near to any of these parameters while trying to sing a song those days. Or even now!

Showing talent sometimes puts you in trouble.

I had acted in a play too, to show my talent. It was the play by our batch for the annual day at college. Our final year in the college. The play had portrayed some of the funny things happening in an around our college as witnessed by Sri Narayana Guru who visits our college. My role was for just 30 seconds on the stage at the beginning, as the Guru enters the college I being a student guides him to Principal’s office. The play was a big hit, people had a hearty laugh.

Next day morning, we- all the actors and script writers were asked to go and meet principal. We thought, yes we are in trouble. In the play, there was a scene where we took a dig at our vice-principal. ( Vice-principal enquires to the attendant “Has the principal come?”  Attendant : “Why sir, any document to be signed ?”. Vice-principal : “No, I just wanted to go and sit on his chair if it is vacant today”.)  

We entered principal’s room. We found vice-principal sitting there! The principal was on leave!!

“Your play was very good”, as vice-principal told this, we felt we were on top of the world. We thought some token appreciation or gift were on the cards. “What ever you told about me, I took it sportively”. Our gift is just a few moments away, we thought. “But there is a small problem. The junior staff got offended with your remarks on them. I suggest you to go and beg pardon!” (In the play there was a reference about a romance happening in the junior lecturers’ room, I am still not sure whether there was any truth in it to make them so annoyed. Probably one of our ever enterprising, snoopy script writers would have smelt the rat!). Anyways, we did that - telling sorry to our junior lectures standing in front of them – from the top of our hearts, most insincerely.

Talent will be displayed inadvertently when one is extremely happy and emotional.

I was returning from Singapore to Chennai by Singapore airlines. Window seat, comfortable. As the flight was nearing Chennai, the gentle man sitting on the aisle on my row just got up. “Namma Naadu Vandaache, pattu aandu aachu naadu paathittu“ ( my land has come, 10 years since I had seen ) the lungi clad fellow started dancing. I knew for sure he was not drunk, as he was sitting beside me. He just could not control his happiness! And, that dance was as good as the “lungi dance” in the movie Chennai express. Only difference was instead of one Deepika Padukone dancing with Sharukh, many airhostesses around our hero were not dancing, but trying to control the talented effort, as seat belt warning was about to glow any time!

At times, talent needs to be demonstrated for administrative purpose!

My friend was attending visa interview at US consulate in Chennai. As he was waiting for his turn to be called for the interview at the counter, he heard some unusual noises – haa, hooo, heee! Then he saw one person at the counter practicing karate. This champion was supposed to travel to US to participate in a karate competition. The officer at the consulate asked him to demonstrate his skills then and there itself to ascertain the genuineness. Luckily for my friend, this person was not a champion in archery! Rather broad frame of my friend’s body would have easily taken a couple of arrow hits!

I have seen many parents send their little ones to too many art/sport classes. On Saturdays and Sundays the kids will be much more loaded with violin, guitar, tabla, mridungam, drawing, cricket, tennis, bhartanatyam, break dance etc – one class after another. This is a good thing to have- at early stages to spot the talent. As the kids reach high school level, almost all classes will be discontinued, it will only be academics then onwards, even after they were found good in one or two areas. Then on their talent will get displayed only in limited occasions such as annual day functions. One can’t blame them. Unless one sees a good career path, that too in abundance, this is bound to happen.

Would this ever change in our country? Or is it that this change is not necessary at all? I am not talented enough to answer these questions.

Those Chilling Moments

“Man survives tiger mauling in zoo”, reported in Times of India yesterday. It seems this man jumped into the cage with a bag of rice to feed tigers. Those two tigers, two white Bengal tigers, male and female got nervous! The female tiger ran away. Don’t jump into a conclusion that even Indian origin tigers are scared of Chinese! The male tiger was hesitant but started attacking him. He was rescued by the zoo keepers.

“An Algerian military transport plane slammed into a mountain on Tuesday in the country's rugged eastern region, killing 77 people and leaving just one survivor. The lone survivor – a soldier – suffered head injuries and was treated at a nearby military facility before being flown to the military hospital in Algiers, a retired Algerian intelligence officer said”. (Source : www.theguardian.com).

“In a recovery being described as a miracle, a Texas teen was being transferred out of intensive care on Tuesday after surviving a Saturday skydiving accident that caused her to plummet 3,500 feet and slam into the ground”. ( Source : www.today.com ). Her mother resisted her daughter’s adventure initially, but after assuring that it would be a tandem jump riding on an experienced diver’s back, she agreed to sign the necessary documents.

This reminds us similar accident in Salem happened almost at the same time, but poor Ramya did not survive. She also went for a tandem jump but from a height of 10,000 feet. Yes, it was due huge lapses by the organizers, and she was extremely unlucky.

“Amkkaayee  korka  ekku  theraavo”, I made this statement (in my mother tongue, Konkani) when I was 5 years old. Which translates to - we also need to conduct a “theraavo. “theraavo” is a ceremony conducted on 13^th day of somebody’s death. I just had a good feast attending one such function due to death of an uncle who died of age related illness. I never knew the seriousness of death or the ceremony, I was so eager to have another such lunch. Everybody got amused by my words. But my grandma got a shock. She had just been diagnosed with cancer. There were no early detection mechanisms or any cure for cancer those days. Cancer meant death in that era. But she was brave enough, fought through and survived much longer than any cancer patient would have. With availability of modern medicines and treatment she would have lived much longer.

That day, I reached the Bangalore city railway station, one hour before departure time as usual! I roamed in the entrance itself as the environment is better than that in the platform. Train no 26 (now it is modernized to 16526 !) Bangalore-Kanayakumari, Island express, which no longer goes to an Island, was my target to reach Cochin, my home town. Though I had a confirmed ticket, I went to see those charts just to check who all got RAC confirmed as the coach and seat number would be published for RACs, only a few hours before the departure time. I had nothing else to do!  One list at the right hand side caught my attention. I was just going through the list, one gentleman pushed me aside and started looking RAC 19 to check what coach and seat he got confirmed. He got more annoyed as his name was not appearing against sl no 19. He started cursing to himself. I just told him “ Your name will not appear in that list”. He got angrier and had a dirty look at me. I asked him to read the header of the chart. It read “Train No 26, Kanyakumari Express, list of people died in the Peruman accident on such and such a date in 1988”. He survived, I saved one person from trying to put his own name in the list of “died” people. The aggression he showed, I have no doubts in my mind, he would have forced the authorities to assign his name against SL no 19 in that list!

My first flight was not by Indian Airlines or Air India. I travelled in a company aircraft along with the company chairman, my first experience on a plane ! I had just started my carrier, and don’t get the impression that, I started my career in a very high role, or the company was a high netwoth one with fewer employees ! Both are not true. The company was 30,000+ strong and I had joined as a simple vanilla computer engineer. Why did they select me to go with the chairman and his delegation – because I knew PC storyboard. ( They had spotted my talent of storytelling at that time itself !!!! ) It was a killer presentation software of those days similar to MS PowerPoint now. The most sophisticated animation feature on that was “fading off” a slide as the story unfolds. I was good at “fading off” stuff. They anticipated the need for last minute change in chairman’s presentation at Delhi, so they asked me also to join. Bangalore-Delhi flight was fun, value for money, 5.5 hours flight on that 18 seater Avro. All fading got over, we started return journey next day.  As the aircraft reached near Bangalore airport, instead of announcement by the captain,  I saw my chairman getting into the cock pit. Another 10 minutes, I thought I was dead. It just landed so roughly with a few jumps on the runway. You may think I was scared because this was my first flight. But my subsequent trips in Indian airlines flights told me that I was not wrong, the landing was not smooth at all. Later I came to know from someone that our chairman himself was a pilot in the forces and had tremendous flying experience. And it was him who made the landing. And it is quite normal that these pilots from forces do the landing in such a rough way. But for me it was seeing my death in front me.

Does not look scary and too close, then read on!

I was in 6^th standard, Govt Upper Primary School, Thalayolaparmabu, the place all my adventures started! My class teacher was Rajarajeswary Sir (It was quite common in that part of the world to call female teachers also “Sir”, we had Annama Sir, Bharati Sir, Sreemati Sir, Razia Sir !). That day I was so thirsty, 10 minutes interval between periods, I sneaked out in search of water. The Panchayat tap was dry as usual. I decided to venture into nearby Rajarajeswari sir’s house, I had gone with friends earlier to drink water from that well. Gate was not locked, but house was locked, no body was at home. The well was that conventional man made one, 6 feet in dia and must be more than 250 feet deep as it is a hilly area. I saw the pulley, rope and bucket. I just bent down supported on the wall, which was just at my chest level, put the bucket in to the well while holding the rope. 

I was facing east. I slipped, I was unconscious for a fraction of minute.  By the time I regained consciousness, I was hanging inside the well – facing West holding both my hands on that wall. I still don’t know how it had happened, my hunch is that while falling I got my left hand grip on the wall and swirled 180 degrees anticlockwise and got my right hand grip also. I screamed and screamed. Nobody turned up. Slowly I managed to climb up with the hands firmly on the wall and got out. Took a deep breath, I found the neighbor of that house who came down hearing the sound of the bucket falling in the water. I had to tell him my class teacher’s name, he had to tell this incident to my class teacher, my class teacher had to tell my parents. It took a month to reach the news home, by that time I had fully recovered from the shock. Had this happened now, the news would have reached home soon I reached to my class back, or perhaps I myself would have taken a selfie and posted in FB and of course in Google+

Though it gives me a chill, I keep remembering the above incident deliberately. To make me aware that this life is gifted to me twice - first when I was born, and the second time when I was too thirsty! That awareness makes me more determined on this - I should make good use of this life.

Breaks of the day !

This morning sipping the tea and thinking of what to write for the today, cup slipped from my hand, broken. In the park during morning walk, I was trying to break my head as what to write. Nothing came up, my mind was blank. Came home, readying breakfast, broke eggs, still no luck on finding a good topic.

It looked like today is a day of breaks. I thought I will take a break from the daily illness of writing!

But then, I thought why not the topic “break” itself.  I have broken or tried to break three things in a span of three hours, cup, head, eggs ! There are many things one breaks frequently. Intentionally or quite inadvertently – but a break is a break and it deserves some attention today.

My office was on 4^th floor in a building on MG road. When I used to write and compile a program, many a times the compiler used to throw innumerable errors. Those times the editors were not intelligent enough, even syntax errors will not be checked while source code was entered. Once the syntax errors also got added, one would get 500 lines of errors while compiling 100 lines of code! When that happened, I used to take a break. Walked along MG road, Plaza theatre, Blue Moon theatre, entered Church Street where no church exists, walked past Hotel R&R and Chinese restaurant Blue Heaven and returned to office. These land marks are no longer there now, they were also forced to take a break. Now new things have come up there. Once back in office after that walk, I used to go through the code and fix  obvious mistakes and recompile, number of errors would reduce to three or four. Such powerful were those breaks!

I had witnessed a series of breaks in a span of 10 minutes while working in the same office. That day I was standing in the balcony thinking of going for a badly needed break. This was not because of any program I intended to compile successfully. It was due to the “Mouli’s” dubba lunch I had in office, half cooked rice and poories soaked in oil along with a few unknown things. As I was wondering which direction to go for a quick “breaking walk”, I heard a loud noise, I didn’t have to negotiate much. In front of Spencers shop on MG road. I rushed to the spot. My heart was broken. Seeing the Contessa car with fully broken windshield and other parts, the 14 year old driver had rammed it into the vehicles in the parking area. Then a rugged Mahindra jeep belonged to ITI, Bangalore with broken rear view mirror due to the impact by the Contessa. Then a Maruti Omni Van bearing no 3477 totally broken in the middle, two LH side doors broken and on the ground, axle broken due to the impact on the back wheel hitting the ramp – all because of that innocent Mahindra jeep forced by the Contessa to hit the Omni. And that Omni, just a month old, which used to get thoroughly cleaned and wiped twice a day belonged to me. My heart had to break much more !

At times one has to break certain thing to gain it. My neighbor’s late night dinner parties were a weekly affair. Some times Jilebi, sometimes Nimbuda, sometimes paan that too banaras wala. These are not menu items for the dinner but Hindi songs that can be heard by many of us. We kept silence, we ignored that as it was happening only once a week and that too till 11:30 PM max. Last few weeks complexion had changed. It became almost a daily affair with more items in the menu. Parties extended till 1:30 AM next day. “We had to break the silence to bring in silence in our neighborhood”. A few nice words did the trick. Now no more Jilebies after 11 PM !

Taking a small break is a good thing, it refreshes you. But if at all you are planning for a long break, try to have some concrete plans in place for that “broken” period.  

What I like most is the break that most of us take on a daily basis. It happens so naturally. We do not take any food, we go for a fast during that daily break. Those 7 to 8 hours of sleep at night. And we break it with a “breakfast”. This might sound like a sermon, but it is effective if practiced religiously. While going for that daily break or fast in the night, remind yourself of a few good things it happened that day and reflect on those many mistakes you committed. And while having the breakfast next day morning, feel strong that many good things will happen with a few non repeated mistakes on that day!

I really need a break now!

Preoccupied

I took news paper in my hands. Straight away went to page 3. I was preoccupied and I was not wrong. One sensational news. It was not murders, suicides, rapes or ATM robberies for a change. “Teens stab each other in dual”. One can’t blame Facebook for this, first of all, teens have stopped FBing and more importantly no such game like “Neknomination” yet available in FB for duals. I left news paper there itself thinking I will read the remaining pages filled with boring political and other irrelevant news for later part of the day. And I started writing this as I was so preoccupied that I will write about "preoccupation" today.

Why?

“Can I have one request? Can you get petrol filled for my TVS scooty ? Morning I will be in a rush and will not get time to get that done” my wife at 7 PM last evening. Her 10^th request, will not be the last one of the day, for sure. I took off. As I entered the petrol pump, I got a feeling that I am entering into that Lebanese restaurant on 100 FT Road at 7:30 PM on a Tuesday. (There three people will converge to assist you to select a table from all the vacant ones. And those tables would remain vacant until or even after you finish your expensive, prolonged dinner with a very few items! ). Yes three of them converged here too, to the only customer of that time. One with the pump in hand another with oil packets in hand and third one with nothing. The nothing on hand fellow asked “How much petrol ?”. I told him 40 ml oil and rest petrol for 200 rupees. While telling him that, I already started looking at the meter. I was so preoccupied. Not once, not twice but umpteen times I felt that I had been cheated by them by not ensuring Zero on the meter while they talked to me. "Why not 80 ml oil?" He asked. “Last 10 years I am using this vehicle and I know the oil-petrol proportion well” I told him and he vanished. It was oil-packet fellow’s turn next.  “One packet or two packet” ! I got down from scooty and stood in front of the meter and told “one packet if it is 40 ml, two packets if it is 20 ml” not removing my eyes from the meter. Job done by pump fellow. I was temporarily satisfied that I ensured Zero while starting the pump, I would not have been cheated this time. As I started riding away from the petrol pump, I had another doubt – did they mix anything in the petrol, did they adulterate it to cheat me!

“Can you please take your mechanic to my colleague’s house this morning? Her scooter is broken down and we can help her” my wife started her innings in the morning itself.  I had taken off that time with the mechanic behind on my Hero Honda Splendor+ to her colleague’s house. (Yes, I am henpecked like anybody else!!). I hadn’t gone there earlier, but I had a fair idea where it was located. But to make him readily agree, I had told the mechanic “it is just nearby”, as if I use to go there every day for a cup of coffee! Have you watched these mechanics? They won’t look at you, their focus will be on your vehicle. To know whether any work needs to be “half- done” by them, they are so preoccupied with that! My mechanic was no different. I could see from rear view mirror he started looking at the back wheel, assessing the braking efficiency as I kept on using brakes at least 20 times in that 1 Km stretch. As I approached the area, I slowed down. I deliberately did not tell him that I am trying to locate the house, I wanted to check his pre-occupation level. “What happened sir, could be dirt in the carburetor, I think your bike needs a service!” yes, it was running at 104 degree Fahrenheit!

“Chairman of a huge US company is visiting us. My boss asked us to prepare a short presentation for just 20 minutes. Why don’t you meet the marketing manager, prepare one and take it to my boss for his review?” Mr. Wise, my boss told me that morning. I knew that this was an existing customer. I did the ground work. Road map, Milestones, Challenges ! Seeing these jargons, don’t get me wrong that I was planning to take Mr. Chairman for a free ride from Bangalore to Tumkur, you might be having that impression about me as I have been talking about only two wheelers so far. It was meant for our future association in software development and services. With that write up I approached Mr. Mktg. “Oh Chairman, from so and so company. No problem. I had done many such presentations. You can take this last one that I did to CEO of a biscuit manufacturing company. Latest. You can show these slides to super boss”.  I just enquired “Mr. Mktg there are 25 odd slides, but the chairman is there only for 20 mins with us”, even having such an expertise in pressing a key, I could not have skipped through 25 slides without even reading them – given the speed those Personal Computers used to provide! “These Chairmen are all like that, once they see our slides, they will sit through for an hour”. Mr. Mktg is so experienced and preoccupied.

I took print out of those 25+ slides, put nicely in an envelope and went to super boss. Understandably, I was so nervous, first time entering into super boss’s room. “What is this all about?” smiling, looked extremely happy that day as he took the envelope from me. I said it is presentation for that upcoming high voltage visit. “Who prepared this ?”. I just told him this is by Mr. Mktg. His face turned red. All happiness went off. “I don’t want to see this. I know what this will contain”. He knew Mr Mktg and his presentation well. He too was so preoccupied. “You just have four slides I will tell you – da da da da”. I quickly noted them down. “No need to review it with me, just show to Mr. Wise ( my boss ) and then be ready”.

I went to Mr Wise with the “da da da da” stuff. He had a smile as if he knew super boss well and he was expecting this “da da da da” anyways. He too was preoccupied. However he assisted me in preparing those 4 slides and yes, we were all set for the presentation. Mr. Chairman arrived on time. Super boss is ready to make the presentation. I was in the corner in front of the PC, ready with my fingers to press for the first “da” to appear on the screen. You must be thinking that my "preoccupied" saga is going to end now. Not really.

“What do we discuss today?” Chairman asked. “We have a short presentation on way forward"  told the super boss. “No No, instead let’s discuss our large development project that you had messed up recently to come up with some concrete plans for future. No presentations please” Chairman also knew well what these presentations would contain, he was preoccupied too ! In the whole scheme of things the only person who was not preoccupied was me, but I was excessively occupied!!

One gets preoccupied by past experiences. It is nice to have that at times. But too much of preoccupation may make you blind and you would miss many good points in the process. So have an open mind, try to be as less preoccupied as possible. If the tendency comes in strong, just get occupied with something useful!