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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!

In circles

Pepper spray! 

A few days back some members of Indian parliament were in tears. Reason, one of the members used pepper spray. For a change, some MPs were in tears. Normally it is the common man who is always in tears. I became curious about this pepper spray and wanted to know more. Found some interesting stuff in today’s Hindu news paper, summarized and enhanced by me based on that report. Given below in “ ”( in quotes).

“It seems the pepper spray did not contain pepper or chilli powder as its name suggests. It is a chemical banned in war. The chemical is called capsaicin, derived from the fruits of plants like capsicum or chilli. Its use is banned in war by the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits riot-control agents. It is banned in many countries but not in India. Anybody can purchase it, no license required. Only the manufactures has to get a license from Government. Obviously these sprays are meant to be used for self defense, like by women when there is in an attempt of rape on them. Obviously our beloved member of parliament misused it, when a war like situation was arisen, which is not that unusual in our parliament.”

This is not new. I have used pencil or pen to attack my friends. Some brutal ones have used hockey sticks or cricket bats. There are many such things were used for their unintended use. The list ended at nuclear energy. Nuclear energy by fission, emitted while heavy elements are broken into smaller ones! Ended in making bombs and then using it. Source Wikipedia, again in “” (in quotes).

“Nuclear fission was discovered in December 1938 .By fission, the amount of free energy generated is pretty high. The energy released is thousands of times more than in petrol or diesel of equal mass. Yes, we are benefitting by this discovery big time, if we did not have the nuclear energy many cities would have plunged into darkness. But what happened in 1945? This technology was used for destructive purpose, not once but twice. Little Boy at Hiroshima and Flat man at Nagasaki that witnessed mass destruction”

When I cross a road I first look right side and then the left side. When I talk about a problem I first look at women and then men. When I check my stock portfolio I first look at the south zone and then the north zone. So when I came across Fission I had to look at Fusion as well!

Luckily, yesterday my friend Udaya shared a link on studies on nuclear fusion. A brief in “” ( in quotes ).

“(source : http://www.newscientist.com. “CLEAN energy inspired by the stars is the dream of scientists pursuing nuclear fusion, in which atomic nuclei fuse together and release energy. In a first for laser-driven fusion, scientists at a US lab say they have reached a key milestone called fuel gain: they are producing more energy than the fuel absorbed to start the reaction. But the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California, is still a long way from sparking a self-sustaining fusion reaction with an overall gain in energy – a process called ignition. Currently, the reactor as a whole needs more energy to operate than the amount that is produced.)”

So people invest heavily on innovations that make huge difference in our lives. People use money to achieve the nearly impossible and difficult things. People have spent big money to achieve great but impossible things. Success stories are many. I do not intend to research on this and reproduce here in between “ ” (in quotes ).

  

But there are people who use money power to get impossible things done. Many members of parliament have done this. With money they enter parliament and then what do they do? They fight, physically, using chemical weapons! That brings the discussion back to where I started.

Pepper spray!

This is to prove the point that these discussions just go in circles with no conclusive end. I wanted to break it today. How to do it? I need to just think of something else, out of the box!

For a while I thought about small dots at random. Then I remembered this unique one. Normally these types of dots will go immediately if I thoroughly wash. This one remained for a few weeks, the dot on my left forefinger which was gifted to me almost 5 years back. During parliament elections. I do not remember whom I cast the vote. I do not remember me attempting to know anything about that candidate prior t0 voting. This time around I will do a research on all candidates. Make a write up and enclose it in “” (in quotes). I will read it again and then decide whom I will vote, for my satisfaction at least. To tell myself I tried to do some justice.

Jai Hind.

Excuses! More Excuses !!

We had a tailor in our town, Paulose. Excellent skills. We used to go only to him for getting our shirts stitched. He had one problem though. Whenever we go to him with the material, he would say “couple of days”. When we went after 2 days, he would give some excuse or other. Finally after 15 days, 4 trips by us, 10 excuses from him, he would give the shirt that too after waiting for 2 hours at his shop on that day of delivery.  Tailors were so notorious those days, now things have changed. We are trying to find excuses to be given to tailors as why we are not going to them at all!

We had a training session by one senior exec that day. Topic was “Time Management”.  We were first time managers of around 15 who came before time. There were many more old hats who had to attend the class. Senior exec blasted people for not coming on time, a big “bhaashan” to all of us who were so punctual. That too for 15 minutes. Then he got into the presentation. He was into 3^rd slide. Bunch of people entered. By the time he was on to 6^th slide the class was full. Probably the old hats had attended many other sessions by him and they knew well that first 15 minutes would any way be a waste, meant for his warm up!

As the class progressed, in some context he talked about the importance of morning walk. “How many of you go for morning walk?” A thin fellow from the middle row raised his hand. All others were looking at exec, as if he was asking us to commit some heinous crime. “I go for a walk daily that too for an hour, that is why I am so fit” he declared. He went on for some more time with Time management fundas and then suddenly he held his left shoulder. “Oh this terrible pain, spondylitis”. We had a funny look at him, he quickly realized his mistake. He wanted to bail out himself with an excuse “See, I took care of most parts of my body by the morning walk, but I totally ignored my back bone”!

Yes, it was Valentine ’s Day yesterday. I was wondering what excuse I would give if at all somebody asks me whether I celebrated Valentine's. I can not say I am a chauvinist,  I am a modern man with progressive outlook.  I cannot say we are old, we are still quite young at our hearts. I cannot say kids are around, they both are out of town. I cannot say I don’t have money, I just updated my passbook and the bank balance still looks healthy. I cannot say I may tend to eat more, I can plan to go to a star hotel and have a single coffee, with of course a candle in the front,  to blow my budget. Oh yes, finally I got the right excuse. We haven’t celebrated Valentine’s day in our life time, so I will not do it this time also. Safe excuse which I can use for next year and subsequent years to come!

Miles and miles away, a few hours after my finding of this excuse,  near Oslo a Norwegian gave another excuse yesterday. ( Source : metro.co.uk) He told cops he forgot to take his license from home, while he was found stranded on that snowy road in a car. When cops looked at him and found that he was too short he told that he was a dwarf. A “ten year old dwarf”. This boy was not alone. He took his 18 month old sister along with him and drove towards his grand parent’s place which is 60 Kms away. He drove 10 Kms and got stuck. Probably he would have been fed up with the way these elders drive the car so recklessly, many a times drunk, breaking all possible laws. With all good intentions, he wanted to show the world how one can drive correctly. Luckily there was no damage to the car or the kids or anybody else.  

Miles away, a few hours later another person gave an excuse. In  Delhi. Former Chief Minister. ( Source : headlines in all trailing and leading news papers in India ! )The excuse was Jan Loka bill and he quit his job. I am not an expert in politics, governance, anti-corruption for that matter even in corruption. But my humble take on this is that he did a mistake (only one ?) while calling all politicians corrupt and kept them at bay. I am 100% sure there are a few good apples in that lot which know governance. He should have roped them in to help him in governance which is different from a movement. One can have group meetings, discussion on social media to arrive at decisions for a movement to oppose evils such as environment destabilization, upliftment for the down trodden masses, if not alcoholism but at least oppose your "drunk and beat" your wife habit. For governance one needs experience and skills especially in the so called “democratic” complex country like India. Yes, in this case damage has been done. Hopes of many in Delhi who were given promises are shattered. Those many across the county hoped to see a different, better political and governance system are totally disappointed. Hope this movement turns into a good corrupt free governance model, I do hope.

One way to avoid giving lame excuses is to think through the feasibility of promises before they are made. One should not think of those excuses upfront that to be given in the event of a failure. Another choice is under-promise and over-deliver.  But there, you would be walking a tight rope. If you under-promise too much, you may not have that appeal. And if you over-deliver too much again your credibility is at stake.

Excuse me, I will not be able to write daily.  But let me promise you. I will try to post interesting stuff once in a week!!!

Enjoy your weekend.

Harpic Challenge

Last evening it was dinner time. My wife brought her plate full of chappatis and curry, sat down and switched on the TV. Ads were going on. As the first piece of chappati entered her mouth I saw her closing her eyes and shaking her head. I never felt any problem with the food. I was wondering as what went wrong. Then my focus shifted to the TV ad. Harpic Challenge Ad ! It was actor Abbas smiling and holding the Harpic toilet cleaner. The ad shows the toilet before Harpic and after Harpic. “Why should they show only this ad when I eat”, my wife complained. (I agree, how can one eat without watching TV, would the food be tasty otherwise? I forgot to mention about that happy house wife with Abbas in the ad. Why shouldn’t she be happy? Even I will also be happy if Abbas comes and cleans my toilet, every day better!).

One needs to be sensitive while telling something - what to tell and equally important is when to tell.

We had a customer visit. The customer was a retail giant in the US. Rick, the outsourcing manager was the one who was visiting us to decide what projects to be awarded. The sales manager was desperate to get some orders as he managed to achieve only 30% of his sales target, we were already into 10^th month of the year. So we decided to provide as much inputs as possible to Rick!

Rick arrived Bangalore on the previous evening. We, presales team, went to meet him at Oberoi and decided to have dinner at Tandoor on MG road as Rick wanted to try out something spicy. He liked and ate all spicy items especially the Chicken Tikka. Before the food would start taking effect on him we bid good bye with the hope that we would meet him in our office next day morning.

Rick did not disappoint us. Sharp 9 AM he was in the office. His eyes were 25% closed though, partly because of the chicken tikka after effects and partly because of the humpy and bumpy travel he had in that 20 Km stretch from Oberoi to ITPL. We did not want to lose a single minute. Straight away we started with the first item in the agenda “Technology capabilities”. Though we had given in the brief to our technocrat that the customer was interested in Microsoft technologies, our man started with Java technologies. Either our technocrat did not read the brief or Java was too close to his heart or he did not know much on the MS front. Whatever the case be, as he went on explaining each tier of the 3 tier architecture Rick’s eyes closed exactly 25% each at end of each tier, so he did not see the conclusion part which talks about what we could offer to him. He lost interest in subsequent sessions that would have had some relevance to him. First off all he was tired and we started pumping him information which he was not at all interested to start with. End result – no addition to sales manager’s revenues!

It was a festival day at my village. The approach road from main road that goes in front of our house was getting repaired. The contractor and his staff came. The road roller came.  I said “goli maaro home work ko” (forget about the home work). I could do home work tomorrow also, but I did not want to miss this excitement. I also joined as a spectator. Don’t get a wrong impression that it was an elaborate process. They would arrange the scattered stone pieces. Spread some soil on top of it. Sprinkle water and press those stones using that heavy road roller. The stones knew, the soil knew, the road roller knew, everything on the earth knew that when the first rain would come all the soil would go off and the stones would go to its original scattered state anxiously looking forward to the next “pressing session” which would be 5 years away, next election time!

Something strange thing happened that day, I was not disappointed. This road roller just went off the road a little bit and got stuck. The driver tried all stunts, the road roller just made weird noises, but it did not move an inch. Think tank formed and joined together - contractor, his staff, driver and a few villagers. Discussion was how to pull this huge fellow out. They were all worried. Bring a crane, lorry or truck, or even an elephant, suggestions were many. Then a brilliant suggestion came from our “Chittappan” who happened to walk past the scene. ( “Chittappan” is not a name. It means father’s younger brother. Since he was “Chittappan” of three prominent youths Kuttappan, Varkey and Jose in that area, he became “Chittappan” to all of us! ). “It is so easy no, last time an ambassador car had the same fate, we just lifted it. We can try the same thing six of us can join and lift it”. Contractor could not control his anger, he was about to hit “Chittappan when somebody told him that “Chittappan” is mentally disturbed and he keeps making such illogical statements. Poor man, he was not in his senses when he told those words, it could happen.

Soon your little child comes home from school tired,  -  instead of offering a juice, soup or coffee -  if you ask him/her “what did  you learn today, what is the home work, how much you got for maths”

Soon your spouse returns home after a busy day at office, - instead of planning to have a dinner or tea and watching any of those no brainer “Kadher Khan Vs Govinda” movies,-  if you list down 10 problems you faced today and 20 problems that you would face tomorrow

Soon your old father or grandfather reaches home after a medical checkup due to the frequent chest pains he gets – instead of asking him to take some rest – you break the news to him that Ramamoorthy in the next lane died of cardiac arrest half an hour back

Then you are no different from we, presales team, and the Technocrat who switched that customer fully off.

Lastly, one request from me as usual, I am requesting this since I do not have any control over this. Please read my blogs when you are absolutely sure that you have free time and when your urge for reading something becomes uncontrollable - I have control only on what I write. Else, you would start calling me “Chittappan” ! I am fine with that in this situation. Do think about it when you jump into that conclusion about somebody dearer to you.

Oodikkoda Oodikko

"Oodikkoda Ooadikko" the boy ahead of me just shouted. (Run man run in Malayalam). I ran the fastest run in my life. This was when I was in the 8th standard studying in Govt Boys High School, Thalayolaparambu - a small town in between Vaikkom and Ettumanoor the two towns where Shiva temples are famous, devotees stop at these two temples to pray enroute to Sabarimala.

Why all this athletic discussion. I will come to that later. The reason why I remembered my school is because of the news today in Times of India about Arya Vidya Bhavan, kannada medium school started 104 years back was survived shut down due to High court stay. It seems there are no enough students in that school which is located at Gandhinagar, prime city center. So authorities were planning to shut it down!

My school was similar but different. First of all I studied in those days no tv, no internet, no mobile, no pizza or burger or even coke. The teachers were sincere. We had Karunakaran sir, who used to go through first para of each history chapter and used to explain us many events in India that were not written in the book, he used to say "you can read those any way from the book". We had Joseph sir who used to catch frogs from paddy field near his house to teach us in biology lab. We had Viswan sir who unfortunately had a drinking habit but never used to fail in completing all portions in time sincerely by taking classes even on weekends
 We had many more capable and sincere teachers.

But we never had many sincere students. Tuesdays and Fridays hardly a few people will attend school as they were market days at Thalayolaparambu. They used to go to assist their parents. We had student strikes every other day as politics was so prevelant even in schools. It was during one such strike I just casually  joined the gang which marched to the girls high school a km away  to make them also closed for the day where my sister was also studying ! When we reached near the girls high school somebody in the front spotted a police vehicle at a good distance. He is the one who shouted "Oodikkoda Oodikko".  I took the nearby narrow country road and hid behind a tree 500 mtrs away from main road.  Later we all had a hearty laugh when the vehicle went past at high speed - which might have been on the way to attend another similar emergency !

When we were in 10th standard there were no strikes as it was banned due to emergency declared by the centre. Still we had just 25% pass with a few first classes. Remember those dedicated teachers slogged for those few students who really wanted to study.

Now coming back to Arya Vidya Bhavan. I am sure there would be teachers equal or better than my old teachers. With little bit of focus the school infrastructure can be brought to some reasonable shape. I am pretty sure 25% or even more of all the students that are poor and coming for free education there can study better than me. For a while I thought of myself and my school days when I heard of this episode.

The scene is no different in many government schools. Just because this is in prime real estate area and was about to close down it got media attention. All these schools need much more attention from government. For govt RTE is not right to education but "reason to elevate" these schools.

I am not saying we can send our kids to these schools in current situation. I havent done it my self. If these schools reach that level of standard probably many middle income people will have a better choice than surrendering to the current pvt school mafia and looting.

It would take time. Mean while you can spend some quality time with your children to explain some of the old stories, incidents which have moral values which are not there or ignored in the current highly competitive curriculam. FBing and Tweetering is good to have. But not knowing our old value systems is no good.

I am sorry

I am sorry.

I will stop blogging. I had written nonsense. I wasted your time. I am a good for nothing fellow. I tried to force my views on you. My wife is not at all happy for all the references I made. My relatives are angry with me. I have created many unpleasant people who were very good friends otherwise. I offended many. I don’t have words to apologize. All I can say again is I am really sorry.

You must be wondering that my blog space is hacked by somebody. Yes it is true. Hacked by myself. These are the words I told to myself a month back when I wrote my 5^th or 6^th blog. That day I made a decision, come what may, I will write daily for next 50 days. Though I have not reached that target, I touched the number 40 yesterday.

I wanted to stop the daily dose yesterday itself, but thought 41 would be a good number as elders advise “+1” is auspicious.  I am very happy from the response from all of you, if I look at the page views in the stats I can see that number of readers is on the rise.

I could have posted this message in FB or Google+ itself. I started with small posts in FB. As suggested by some of you I started blogging like this. I realized that this would be better method than boring all people with my thoughts, let me bore only those who are interested.

I am not going to stop blogging at all. All I am saying is that I will stop the habit of forcing myself to write daily. In many days, sheer compulsion by me made me write. Obviously it was taking a toll on me and my blogs. I was not natural and true self in all occasions. Some came out well, some were bad. Now I will wait for a trigger to write something rather than forcing myself to pick up each and every thing on a daily basis.

Finally, yes I am sorry for not able to write daily. But I am not at all sorry for the fictitious reasons I mentioned at the beginning! I will continue blogging !!

My encounter with bull

Last evening my encounter was with a bull. My house is strategically located that all types of vehicles including video coach buses pass through the road in front of my house. There would be cows and bulls and dogs moving around as well. I was about to take my bike from the road and park inside the gate. I saw this bull which was well built and he looked a bit aggressive. His horns were sharp and big. But he was walking rather slowly but confident enough to know where his home is unlike those humans who get out of the bar on the nearby main road. Since it was getting dark I thought I would make him walk faster. I made a sound which I had heard people making at my village to speed up these bullocks. I cannot describe how the sound would look like. In any case you may not encounter such a situation. So there is no need to know that.

Hearing my sound this bull just stopped. Turned around and started charging towards me. I ran inside and closed the gate. I was not sure what he wanted. I did not know any other sound that would sound like “Sorry. You may go as you wish” to him. To my relief he waited for a few minutes and then went off.

There is a saying in Malayalam “Veliyelirunna Paambine eduthu vendaathidathu vechu”. Literal translation is “Took a snake which was on the fence and kept it in unwanted place (of one’s body)! Unwanted for the snake but much wanted by you. Some people have precisely specified that “unwanted place” for better clarity while using this saying. Anyways our focus is not that. So let’s continue. The meaning of that saying is that “somebody knowingly invited trouble”. I did just that in the case of this bull.

We were touring Delhi during our bachelor days. One of our guys got sick. He was running high temperature. He wanted to stay back at the hotel room in the evening when we decided to go for a walk. Some of us knew it was a blessing in disguise as this guy was capable of creating some trouble to all of us. But some felt sorry for him. Gave him a Crocin tablet and urged him to join us as otherwise he would be left alone in the room. We all set off in the Karol Bagh area. “Look that lady. She is so pretty” the high temperature fellow shouted in Malayalam. All of us saw a young couple walking in front of us. For a moment all of us were trying to look at that lady from different angles to validate our friend’s words. That exercise lasted for a few seconds only. The young husband looked back and told “after seeing her beauty only I married her. You guys have any problem?” in a much better Malayalam than any of us could speak! We all were shell shocked. One guy took some courage and said “Sorry Chetta” which settled the issue there with no further confrontations.

Our customer office in Singapore was at Gateway East on beach road. Gateway East and West are adjacent towers with 30+ floors and cross section of each building was a rhombus. We were given a company accommodation at a complex near to work place. It was a big complex with first few floors being commercial and the rest used for residential purpose. We were in the 8^th floor flat with a good view of the road that leads to Little India. We came to know another person was joining that week to share the acco. I came to know much more. I came to know that this new arrival would be pain in the a** - much wanted place in the body ! He arrived. As he spoke I realized that he had to use that four letter word quite often. In fact he used that word as we use commas while writing. We use comma whether it is required or not. More often we use it when it is not required. (By the way I read somebody saying if comma is abolished no harm will be done to the English language. I tried it today. No commas in my blog! My friend Ganesan uses commas sparingly in a sentence but he uses as many as three of them in tandem to denote a full stop!).

Five days passed by. On Saturday morning I was sitting near the window and watching all the action on the road leads to Little India. All others were still sleeping. Our four letter man came out of his room holding his soiled clothes. “Where to” I just asked. “Four letter Word Man I am going to give these to laundry”. Though I knew I might get into some trouble I could not resist telling him that it would be too expensive. I told him he could as well use the washing machine in the house. He hadn’t seen it in the house even after five days. “Very good idea” he said. He made me take him to near washing machine. “Where is the switch?”. I switched it on for him. “How to open the washing machine door?” I opened it for him. “How to put these clothes?” I just told him he needs to drop them one by one. “that is all?” I told him he needs to put some detergent. “How much and where ?” I just told him couple of spoons and he was still waiting for me to put those clothes and detergent. I realized that I touched the snake and it was getting into unwanted places. I told him I had to go out now. I hurriedly went out. I walked towards Little India with no purpose – one place one can just go in Singapore even if there is no need!

There would be snakes on the fence. May be they enjoy that environment. If you think they are trapped you can shout. But there is no use as snakes have no ears. You can stand 12 feet away and throw some stones on the fence (not at the snake!) or use a long stick to shake the fence. Still if it is not moving and if you are brave enough you can catch it on its neck and release it on the ground.  But do not attempt to take it and keep it close to your body. You know the snake can bite and can be poisonous. Though the snake might not know it. Keep them away not to get harmed.

First Things

One, two, three….fifty – I managed to walk backwards fifty steps in the park today.  I saw somebody doing that, so I thought I will also give a try. It was refreshing. I was walking backwards consciously for the first time. Is it not true that if we do something or if something happens for the first time in our life, that becomes memorable?

Like anybody else, I also had lots of things for the first time in my life, almost all of them memorable ones. Some were pleasant some were not so pleasant. I had my first trousers – 40 inch bell bottom, I had my first salary – four figure one 1800 rupees, I had my first marriage – the only one ! – I had my first child – grossly underweight, I  had my first car – 77 model premier padmini, I had my first own house – 3 bed duplex with no water and proper approach road, the list goes on.

I have many experiences which I can not detail in this forum. Let me narrate a few possible interesting ones.

My first job assignment was to go with my supervisor and find out how much time a cook would take to cut 1 KG of onions! I was posted in Industrial Engineering department of the company. This department is responsible for assigning norms for time required for each task by the workers. If a worker is able to complete the task in a time less than the norm, then he is eligible for an incentive. That day was to revisit the norms for the canteen workers. I thoroughly enjoyed that activity, first time me with a stop watch standing in front of a cook while he skillfully cuts onions after onions. Luckily, the GM of that unit agreed to my request for a transfer. I was transferred within 2 months that too to computers division. That was a big turning point in my life and career.

I was too proud when I bought my first motor bike. 100 CC geared,  TVS Suzuki that too silver grey in color with registration number 6630. I had to shell out half of the monthly salary as EMI towards this. My friend brought the vehicle home and I did a few rounds in the nearby park. Next day morning was my first venture into tar road. My friend Moidu was at the back. I was entering into old airport road through one of the side lanes. I heard Moidu screaming “brake, brake, brake”. There was an auto rickshaw approaching from the other side. I was holding the left brake tight ( as in the case of bicycle which I was used to so far ) without realizing that it was the clutch. I just hit the auto rickshaw and it toppled and Moidu and I fell on the other side. I saw the auto rickshaw driver shouting and more loudly the passenger, who would miss his flight! All those shouts went into my deaf ears as I was watching the silencer (tail pipe) of my bike turned into a perfect V shape with 30 degrees acute angle. I had to spend remaining half of that month’s salary towards auto and my bike repair!

I had witnessed many first experiences of my friends as well, why should I leave them just like that!  My friend Hari landed in Singapore morning at 10 and came straight to office. His first abroad trip. Some of us were camping there for some time. We were happy to see another gentleman sharing while eating those authentic Chinese and Malay lunches in those crowded eating places. But that day was different. It was one of the customer manager's birthday party and we all went to some posh Chinese restaurant, of course Hari joined us with all enthusiasm. Some 10 unknown items were served one after another, locals claimed that these dishes contained seafood, chicken, rare veggies, more importantly some exotic herbs and spices. No wonder I don’t remember names of those dishes ! We all ate well without knowing what it was and returned to office. Hari wanted to take some rest as he was tired of traveling and went to the hotel. Half an hour later, we got a call from Hari. “I am feeling a bit tired, can someone come to the hotel?”  Two of us went to see Hari. We could not recognize him. His face was swollen, cheeks were swollen, full rashes on his face. His eyes became too small as if he adapted to Chinese culture and looks very quickly! We took him to doctor, it was case of some food allergy probably of sea food or herbs. He became alright in a day.  Hari survived on French fries and coke for the entire tenure there.

Michelle was with us in our Bangalore office for couple of months. She was our project lead from the US. As usual, some enthusiasts in the team decided that coming Friday would be ethnic day. All should come to office in ethnic dress. Michelle didn’t want to be left behind. She decided to come dressed in a conventional silk saree, first time in her life. On Thursday evening with couple of ladies in the team, she did that job, bought an expensive silk saree from Cauvery Emporium at MG road. Friday morning came. We were all awaiting the arrival of Michelle in that gorgeous saree. I know you guys are also not able to control your eagerness. Michelle disappointed us. She was in the same usual Jeans and Top. We wanted to know what had happened. In fact Michelle was more disappointed than us. Those dumb ladies did not tell her that she needed to wear a blouse along with the saree. She did not have one when she attempted to wear the saree in the morning !!!!

Almost all of us would have printed “Hello World” when we wrote our first program, be it in FORTRAN/PASCAL/COBOL/C/C++/JAVA/VB. How proud we were to see when that message was displayed on the screen once our first program got complied and executed? It was a declaration from one more programmer that he/she arrived to the world to write many programs with all possible bugs, which could give employment to another 5 programmers to fix those bugs!

As one grows older, the chances of getting that first experience reduce considerably. One can’t have a first child any more, one can’t have first job any more, one can’t have first car any more. A few would still be there like first retirement, first pension, first trip to Kedarnath/Badrinath, first grand child etc till one meets the first death. One has to be really innovative and outgoing to do many more first things, they will stop happening as routine in life.

In interim what one can do is to try to make each activity as different as possible from the previous instance. One can write a piece of code more efficient than the previous time. One can take Residency road, Shule circle, Hosur road approach rather than Sony world, Koramangala approach to office once in a while, though traffic would be the same, at least the number of humps would be different. One can try to add some flavor or make minor changes to the routine tasks. By doing so, one need not say every day “first” thing in the morning “Oh man, I am bored of this life!”

Cheers ! (Instead of a usual boring “Have a good day”)

That choice is yours

I had to meet my daughter at the city bus stand. I had many choices to reach the bus stand. By ordinary bus with 5 minutes of walk, by Volvo bus with 15 minutes of walk, by car with no parking space assured, by bike with no return guaranteed. I am very lucky these days. I have so many options to choose from for any thing and every thing.

We never had so many choices earlier. All my batch mates will agree that when we completed plus two, we did not have any clue as what next. Based on our marks we just had one or two choices and we just opted one of them.

Swayamvar is one custom of olden days I like most. Princess could opt her would be husband after seeing all bravery performed by many prospectives. One area where ladies were given much importance. At present the process is so easy. All one need to do is demand fb movie of the person and one can find out how many people he shot down using deadly AK47s!

At times due to sheer desperation one may have to go for the only available option, and pay heavy price for the same.  I faced such a situation. I had gone to see Versailles palace with my friend on the only sunday I got in that short trip. Walked and walked in that cold weather. As I exited I was so desperate to answer nature's call. There were no writing around on the walls which read - please do not urinate here - as seen in Bangalore. These are the spots which people are made aware that job can be done here too! Anyways luckily I found a toilet and rushed in. But to my disappointment the mens was closed for clean up work. The sweeper lady who was watching my hysterics realized my grave problem. She gestured me to use the ladies toilet. Half heartedly with no other choice, I finished my job and came out. The lady outside was still there asking " two euros" ! It was a bit costly affair !

Sometimes your choice can be mercilessly quashed. I was supposed to go with one of the most senior managers of the company for a two day workshop at Mumbai. He asked me to talk to somebody and finalise a hotel to stay there, choice was mine. I checked with finance and HR folks and identified a star hotel. Though I was not eligible for that hotel since I was traveling with him they said it should be fine. I told this to senior manager, he just stared at me and agreed to it looking at my eagerness to stay in a star acco. He was such a simple man he wouldnt have minded an ordinary place. He asked his secretray to do the bookings. I could not sleep in the previous night of my travel. I was worried whether I will be able to sleep in that luxirious room next day.  At the airport the senior manager whispered to me. "Small change in the plan. We will not stay in hotel, instead we will stay in company guesthouse, a two bed room flat". Small for him, but it was the biggest change in my life. His boss instructed him to do so as cost cutting was rampant those days with in and across organizations. Could sleep well that night at guest house though. Felt at home! But my "star stay" wish remained unfulfilled.

But for these abberations generally our problem these days is not lack of options for any purpose., but having too many of them. We have those that can give short term results but risky. We have long term ones that are safe but expensive. We have simple ones that we may not like. We may have complex ones that would never work. We have attractive ones that may hurt others. We have dirty ones that may hurt self but please others. I have many options to go on listing like this.

Ultimately for a situation when you have multiple options chances are high that you getting confused which one to choose. Please go ahead with the one which you think the best after analysing available data. You may not have much time to analyse all pros and cons. Go ahead confidently. That choice is yours, own it. Most of the time you would look back and say - yes I did the right thing.

Theory and Practice

I met my friend with his daughter the other day. I knew his daughter was a good dancer. She had recently participated in state level dance competition. So as usual, I was curious to know how she performed in the competition. With a lots of disappointment on her face she said, “First 2 rounds I cleared. Third one they didn't allow me to get through, they are all biased”. To console her, I just said “Participation is important, winning is secondary”. Her response was quick “I guess. In theory. Hope in practice also.”

I cannot forget my first job interview. I went through relevant details about the company - what is the turn over, how many employees, what are their products and services etc etc. I also went through “dos” and “donts” while appearing for an interview –take a deep breath, take seat only once you are asked to do, have a smiling face, greet all while entering the room, look at every member of the panel while speaking, speak slowly and clearly, do not show any haste to get out of the room once the interview is over etc. My time came. There were 12 “grey hair” people sitting in the interview panel. First four steps went as I planned, sat on the chair and greeted all of them. I was waiting for the first question, “how many aircraft our company manufactured this year”, or a similar question like that!

“What is the longest distance you have ever traveled”, this was their first question taking clue from the only hobby that I wrote in my form which was “traveling!” I didn't want to leave any column blank! Totally unexpected, on a back foot, taken aback I could think of only god then. I said “Tirupati”! I could hear the laugh from them which made me forget all the theory I mugged up for preparing for the interview. Interview just went on, I didn't even remember whether if I had used 5% of the tips I picked up from books. And I ran out of the room soon they told me, “It is all over”! I thought it was all over for me, but I got the job !!!

Theory behind is definitely somebody should know. My friend is knowledgeable in all fields. You ask him how planes roll or pitch or yaw he will tell you how it is achieved. You ask him how temperature is maintained in a space shuttle, he will tell you. If you ask him as what is the difference between a petrol engine and a diesel engine, he has the answer. Well read person. I saw him one evening stranded in the parking lot in front of his car. It seems he had kept the head lights on for the whole day and the battery got drained. Obviously the car could not start. I told him “I will push the car, you can push start it”. He replied “Why don’t you do that, I will push the car, I don’t know how to start it sitting inside”. A few practical undocumented tips will be of great help, even if one knows the theory well.

Namboodiri was traveling alone in a boat. Namboodiri asked the boatman whether he knows the funda behind boat, how its shape is arrived, why it is able to float, how it turns left and right as he paddles and so on. Boatman replied, I just learnt rowing seeing my dad doing it. I do not know much about the boat. Namboodiri retorted “fool, when any boat repair comes what will you do ? Will you not be ashamed of depending someone else?” By that time the boat reached in the middle of the river. The boatman asked the Namoodiri, “Sir, do you know swimming?” Namboodiri replied “ I have read as how one can float in water, how one can move forward peddling legs and moving hands, but I never tried it myself,  by the way why are you asking this?”. Boatmen was quick in responding as they both were running out of time “ Then sir you need to be a bit ashamed now. You have to depend on me to reach ashore, the boat is going to sink in 2 minutes !!” . Yes, theory needs to be practiced!

I am sure almost all of you while learning driving a car (not automatic gear shift, but the manual), you would have looked at the speedometer while shifting the gear. Neutral while starting, first as it starts moving, second at 10 KMPH, third at 25 KMPH and fourth at 45 KMPH, the instructor would have told you. Some people would know the theory behind it, someone like me would not know it ! In either case, your focus would be to shift the gear at the right speed forgetting who or what is in front of your car at that moment. But as you drive now so confidently, do you ever look at the speedometer while changing the gear? For that matter do you really bother if somebody is very close to your car from front or at the back ! Practice makes you “over prefect”!

Practice with no theory may not end in desirable results at times.

In a tribal area, they found that all new born babies are totally bald, no hair on their heads. The medical welfare team visited the place and provided the parents with a herbal oil that needs to be applied once in the morning. They had given enough stock for 3 months. To demonstrate how it should be applied, they used a pot and applied oil on its surface. Three months down the line, the team visited again to see the effectiveness of the oil. Not a single kid having a single hair on it head ! But the team found pots all over the place with shining surfaces due to applying oil everyday ! The folks there blindly followed what the medical team had demonstrated with no knowledge of theory behind it.

Some intelligent people may ask me, why that medical team used pot as demo piece, why didn't they use actual head of one of the newborns. Genuine question!. The medical team could not do it because what I told so far was fiction. If you want to know the true story and real reason behind it then please read on!

-          The problem was not baldness, problem was rise in population

-          The demo piece was not pot, the demo piece was bamboo sticks

-          Solution was not using oil, but it was commonly used contraceptive for men

-          They had returned after 10 months, not after 3 months

-          What they saw was not bald heads but many more newborns with curly black hair

-          What they saw was not shining pots, but it was lots of bamboo sticks scattered around wearing those contraceptives !!!!

Enough said. Yes, both theory and practice should go hand in hand and both are equally important.

Have a super Sunday !