Try to delight that customer

“Railway authorities fined 1000 rupees each for those people traveled with no ticket in Ranchi”, news today. I am sure dozens of black cat commandos with AK 47s would have guarded them while they were doing this. I had heard that people in some parts of India while traveling will deliberately forget to buy tickets, but will never forget to carry their deadly weapons with them even by chance. Good news is that Railways will get more revenue and if this trend continues one can expect better toilets in trains, if not in all coaches at least in S1 and S2 !

It is nice to see that people are able to perform their duties, fearlessly.

In chapter 3 of Bhagavad Gita, “Karma Yoga” it clearly explains how it is the duty of each and every member of society to carry out their functions and responsibilities according to the rules and regulations of the society, fearlessly. At one place it mentions that “Performing one’s natural prescribed duty tinged with faults is far better than performing another’s prescribed duty perfectly; even death in performing one’s natural prescribed duty is better; for performing prescribed duties of others is fraught with danger”.  It is better that some of our ministers are reminded of these facts, when they try to do things like conducting a raid late in the night in a suspected drug peddling and sex trade (more frequently used terms these days compared to terms like “Karma Yoga” ) locality.

It is not easy to step into somebody’s shoes. My friend, we were 14 yrs old that time, got a new bicycle from his dad, that too Hercules brand. That machine was equivalent to 150 cc, oil cooled, disk barked, Yamaha R15 motor bike these days.  After a few weeks of use, he thought its time to get it overhauled, apply some grease to the moving parts. He decided to do it himself.  He made exactly 3 trips to the cycle mechanic that day after that. Morning first trip, to carry the bare frame of the cycle. Second trip in the morning carrying those two wheels and a gunny bag full of bolts and nuts and some small parts that may go to unknown places on the cycle. Third trip in the evening to collect the cycle in its true shape after paying 30 rupees ! My friend walked really fast in the forward direction in the shoes of the mechanic, took some rest, but could not return at all !

It is a relief seeing the Supreme Court directive that one cannot transfer IAS & IPS officers for 2 years at least. These bureaucrats can now discharge their duties faithfully and continuously. The term continuously brought my friend to my memory. He would be in a suggesting mood, perpetually. That hampers considerably his desire to perform his duties in a continuous manner. We had a new CEO in the company, hired from outside, not home grown. My “suggestive” friend wanted to impress upon him. He sent CEO a report detailing, how our company should be customer centric, how we need to hunt for new customers, how to mine or milk existing ones, how to improve quality in our products and services, how to improve margins etc etc, fairly  lengthy report. The CEO was smart (he has to be, otherwise he would not have been picked up for the job ). He easily understood that our friend was busy skimming through those management books for at least 3 weeks to prepare this fundu report and not focusing on what he was actually supposed to do. CEO just replied “You do your job. I will do mine”!

I read in news paper yesterday that in Tumkur, nearby town to Bangalore, cops were tied up and beaten by villagers while the criminal escaped. To nab the wanted criminal, the cops were not in uniform for obvious reasons. Villagers mistook that some miscreants were trying to harm their fellow man. I do understand the disguise part. But I fail to understand why these cops did not carry small revolvers hiding under their belts. They could have at least fired 2 rounds into the open sky when they were about to be attacked due to mistaken identity. May be they had the guns but it did not fire when it needed most! So performing duty is important, having necessary and reliable resources is equally important.

At times people are forced to do some duties which they are not familiar with. My 10^th Standard class teacher, Chandrasekaharan was a victim of this. He used to teach us English and was patient enough to correct the spelling and grammar mistakes while we attempted to write in English. My salutations to you beloved Chandra sir, wherever you are. Luckily we never used to speak in English, rather that was not imposed on to us, else his task would have been much tougher. Our  sports event of the year came by and our born rude headmaster assigned the task of conducting this meet to my poor non athletic class teacher. He was struggling to find out the distance covered by one of the long jumpers. In the other side of the ground, that tall hefty student, whose only focus was to do some sports activity and no academics, was sitting in the 9^th standard for the third time, took the javelin in his hands.  He threw the javelin with all his force to cover maximum distance. It did, but in the wrong direction and fell in a totally wrong place. Like a high precision drone missile it pierced through the left ear of Chandrashekharan. One can imagine the trauma and pain he went through. Hospitalized for a week. Only plus point of the whole episode was the otherwise soft spoken teacher became loud enough to people at back bench also, as he became partially deaf.

There would be challenges, there would be pain, and there would happiness when you discharge your duties. “One cannot remain without engaging in any activity at any time even for a moment”, says in Karma Yoga. So we can’t get away with that. Another important thing to remember is for any activity, there will be at least one customer. When you develop and deliver an IT system, the end client is there. When you write an HR policy, employees are there. When you right a piece of code, the poor tester is there. When you meditate, your mind is there. When you go for a walk, your body is there. When you do nothing, no, no, it is just not possible. You will be in to some activity or other. And the cutomer(s) will always be there.

Try to delight that customer.

Tomato in the Fridge

In earlier days, farmers used to grow tomatoes, used some of the harmless homemade pesticides to save the plants. Many flowers fell down, a few turned into fruit. They could sell some of them in a day or two, rest of the fruit perished due to lack of any preservation techniques.

Now what is the story? The farmers are equipped with powerful pesticides and chemicals. Spray once when the plants flower. Spray twice when they become fruits. Spray for a last time when they are ready to be plucked. Now is the turn for the wholesalers and retailers. They sprinkle a few more harmful chemicals on these poor tomatoes, which have already lost all its nutritious values, to make them look fresh. You go and buy atleast 2 Kgs as you will get time to buy only after 2 weeks. Keep them in the fridge for those chemicals to flourish more. After 10 days you realize that you haven’t cooked at home for a while, switch to youtube, ( my niece claims  she is an expert in youtube based cooking) pick up some vague recipe. You realize that tomato is one of the ingredients required. You open the fridge, pick up those tomatoes with little life left in them. Once you reached the stage while the chef asks you to cut and put those tomatoes after all his praising and “bs”ing  on that dish then you look at those tomatoes. They are dead! Surely, these new gen tomatoes did live much longer than their ancestors did.

“Life expectancy goes up by 5 years in India in the past decade”, when I read this I could think of those tomatoes only. No doubt, in the advent of effective medicines and eradication of life threatening diseases, life expectancy is going up. We all welcome it, our chances of living more are increasing. But would it be a healthy life?

We know how vulnerable we are. During one of our trips to Ooty, my uncle started drinking water from the jug provided in the hotel. We told him it may not be advisable as the water may be contaminated, asked him to drink from bottled mineral water. “Don’t worry, I never bought water in life. I always drank tap water. Nothing will happen to me. You may drink from that bottle”. We strictly followed his advice, when he was hospitalized in two days time due to a severe attack of jaundice, none of us was worried. So be a Roman when in Rome! But need not be always. All the mistake I made was went for a preventive health check up a few years back. Triglyceride was showing slightly high. Consulting doc advised for bit of exercise and control on diet. I over did it, I became much thinner than I anticipated. Suddenly I became a “non-roman” ! People started asking me “are you ok”, “hope your health is good”, “you look old and pale”. As recent as 2 weeks back, I met my cousin after a long time near CMH road. His erratic life style due to high work pressure from HDFC BANK where he works, was written all over in his appearance. He was curious to know whether I have “sugar” (am I diabetic!).

One reason for higher life expectancy is because of good food supply I believe. Good. People do not die of starvation at least. But is the quality of food adequate, are they affordable? I had prepared a list of things I will eat for a healthy balanced diet. Spoke to my sister, cabbage is out from my list, reason – bad for thyroid. Read in news paper apple is coated with wax like chemicals to retain its freshness, but dangerous for health, apple is also out of the list. I found almonds are so expensive; price is going up every other day, almonds also gone out of list. List is getting smaller day by day. At this rate, I have to either ignore all those findings and move on or fall back to what my ancestors did – kanji (rice porridge), pappad and occasional chutney.

 “The only way to keep our health is to eat you don’t want, to drink what you don’t like and do what you rather not” – Mark Twain. People may ask what life it would be. At least one can add a few of those unwanted, disliked things in the routine, by which he can postpone the day when he is forced to do only those!

Life style change need not be that drastic. Reduce intake of those problematic food items and also do a bit of exercise. That need not be jogging for hours in a day. It can be as simple as going to buy vegetables more frequently instead of asking your wife to do it all the time. You may end up in buying all unwanted vegetables, as per your wife. But that’s fine that is what even Mark Twin said, eat which you don’t want, for a better health! I heard somewhere that a person was asked by doctor to stop his bad habits so that his life span will be extended by another 5 years, he promptly replied as who would like to live those 5 years anyways. Jokes apart, if one lives a disciplined life, the chances are high that he would enjoy every moment of his life till the last one.

No doubt, increase in life expectancy is a good contribution by the scientists. One can happily walk on busy and thickly populated streets of Shivaji Nagar or KR  Market. He will not get any life threatening disease like small pox ( WHO had confirmed that small pox has been totally eradicated in 1979). But the chances of getting minor/major illnesses are very high. Only beneficiaries are those doctors who get tax free income, they give you a long prescription but not that tiny cash receipt unless you ask them.  And you continuously take one medicine or other to maintain reasonable health.

“Keep your health, else others will”.  The others will be doctors and the medicines prescribed by them. That health will be unhealthy anyways! You may always be visiting doctors and hospitals till you confine into a “fridge equivalent” ventilator!

Do not march towards becoming that tomato in the fridge, definitely not at a rapid pace!

For your eyes only !

 I read the RBI policy today. Nothing new. Nothing much to comment about. So let me talk about something else.

This is for your eyes only!

I had an irritation in my left eye couple of days back. Once others started asking me what had happened to my eye, I decided to go to eye doctor. I was warmly welcomed. The technician carefully dropped into my eyes a few drops of some solution looking through his 7 mm thick spectacles. He asked me to keep my eyes closed for 10 minutes before I could meet the doctor.

As I closed my eyes, my eyes started talking to me:

“Good evening master. First of all let’s thank you for keeping our lids closed while sleeping. Else we would have been working 24X7. But you don’t seem to be applying what you learnt. Don’t you know greens are very good for our health, but you are always fond of masala dosa, masala puri, masala movie and any other masala stuff. That’s why you are forced to bring us here. Last time when we came, the doctor asked us to go through some alphabets at random. You use to write them in such a meaningless way only when you wanted to write bad words. Probably seeing our condition the doctor was trying to convey similar message to you in as many letters and as random as possible.

As you know, we are identical twins. Squarely placed on your face that makes you more handsome. We don’t look each other, in fact we cannot. One way it is good as we are not jealous of what the other is doing otherwise it might result in degradation in our performance. We belong to a family which is purely secular. It doesn’t matter whether our master is a Muslim, Christian or Hindu. We try to serve with the same level of commitment with no bias. People like to distinguish by saying LEFT eye, RIGHT eye. Let’s make it very clear to you, we do not have any preference to either LEFTism or RIGHTism.

  

We always face some screen or other, at times 5.5 inches, at times 14 inch monitor, many a times 42 inch LCD screen. We rarely come across any greenery. How long we can withstand this torture?

We are disappointed yesterday, when you were praying in front of god at the temple. Why did you keep our lids shut? Don’t we also have the right to see the god?

We may be small, but remember Gandhiji had also mentioned about us "An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind." Though we will not be responsible if such an event happens, but we can tell you we are the most vulnerable ones in any physical attack.

This is not blame game, we were helpless, and we did the best we could do. Last week when you were trying to get into the bus, we had processed all the images with high precision and sent to that “brainy head” above us. He was busy doing your arithmetic to compute how much you lost in stock market. It took some time for him to throw that garbage out of memory and load our data. By the time our data was processed and sent your right elbow, it was too late. Your elbow hit one of our brothers residing on the bearded face of the alighting giant from the bus. We felt sorry for our brother, but we did not like the comment made by the giant. “Don’t you have eyes”, how can he ask such a silly question when our brothers on his face, though the right brother had been badly damaged by your elbow, can clearly see us on your face?

We are also greedy. These days who says enough when it is enough? Last evening you did not direct us to those beautiful ladies just because your wife was with you. Of course we are thankful for feasting us on another beautiful bunch when you were alone at your morning walk!

At times we feel we are let down. During your lunch last week at Barbeque nation, we just had a glimpse of those juicy kebabs. Our nosy brother below had a great everlasting aroma and that big mouth fellow below had all the fun, tasting every bit of that kebab. Once we ( your eyes ) were bigger than your stomach, (if you do not know what this phrase means, refer your grammar book, there are many such phrases like this mentioning us where we do not have any role to play at all !), and the spice hit you real hard we were moist that cooled us down a little.

Now we hear google glass is coming with more features. Google is adding prescription frames and new styles of detachable sunglasses to its computerized, internet-connected goggles. We hear it is going to sit at our brow level, higher than where spectacles glasses would go. Wearing it you can surf the web, read your email, share photos on FB. We do understand over engineering pays off occasionally, but you people are adding more and more work to us, as such we are over loaded. You folks seem to be blindly following the proverb "The eyes can do a thousand things that the fingers can't."

We have a humble request to you. Please maintain us well and keep us healthy. Do donate us to somebody while you die. We do not want to die with you. More over we can serve another master, probably less boring than you. It may pain us a bit. It does not matter, since it extends our life, more importantly another human being can see the world through us. Please make all documentation ready and appraise all stake holders about your wish, so that last minute donation becomes smooth.”

“Open your eyes”, growled the technician. I opened my eyes, asked my eyes to shut up for while as I walked into the doctor’s room.

Consumes alcohol, dies

“Eight year boy consumes alcohol stored at home and dies”. TV news, one week ago. “Another six year boy consumes alcohol kept at home and is hospitalized”. TV news, yesterday.  I have to write about this today.

These incidents are not reported from any uncivilized part of the world. It is from “Gods own country”, the state that achieved hundred percent literacy, Kerala.

Fathers of these children do not deserve any mercy, they have to be severely punished. They should be reminded of one thing, if their fathers were also irresponsible like them, then these people would not have grown this much, would not have had children for them to murder or harm.

Children, they observe keenly. They learn fast. They want to imitate what elders are doing. They are not scared of trying anything exciting, which they see, they think of. Probably these boys would have seen the hero happily enjoying life after a few drinks in a movie. Or they would have seen their father laughing loudly after consuming that colorful liquid from that bottle. They also would have wanted to laugh, otherwise rare possibility for them in their own homes.

Long back my 3 year old son was frantically searching in the house, when I just came out after a bath. I asked him what he was looking for so much. He wanted to know where I kept my mustache so that he can try it out and see how he looks with that. That day I had removed my mustache first time in my life, just for a change!

Haven’t you told your small child to use the “RIGHT” hand instead of left hand for all good things in many occasions? That is because she wants to do in the exact way as you are doing, she thinks her left is your “RIGHT”. (Let me use girl child now onwards for narrating examples. Normally we use “he”. Since in our society, girl child is more neglected, let me do that. Anyways S(he) includes he right?). If our parents had not corrected this (rather instructed like this) all of us would have been left handers and all our children would have been right handers ! I am not sure what would have happened to the RIGHT-LEFT conflict then!

As parents, do we teach our children values? When we go to restaurant, we over feed our children by providing whatever they ask. Argument made is, we were not given these luxuries by our parents so at least let my children get those. We order more for self and eat much more to compensate for that deprivation. How many of us know this quote from Bhagavad Gita ( in fact there are many more !) “Those who eat too much or too little, who sleep too much or too little, will not succeed in meditation”. Too much or too less of anything is not good for us. Our ancestors knew this value that is why we were deprived of excess of anything. How many of us try to understand these values and teach our children not by preaching but by demonstrating those values by way of life.

When a parent instructs his/her child to tell his/her office people that he/she is unwell, while he/she just wanted to take a break from work to watch a movie that day, what value is conveyed to the child? When you proudly sit behind the scooter when your 11 year daughter rides it, are you not conveying the message to her that law can be broken?

“Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old he will not depart from it” – Quote from the Bible. My team was away to Mysore for an offsite 3 day workshop. We had rooms in twin sharing basis and my roommate was Vivek Shukla. In the morning, as he woke up he just came and touched my feet, I was still in my bed. I was touched ! I never touched anybody’s feet, (may be in some ritual functions mechanically without any meaning attached to it). I am not saying here that all should start touching elders feet from now onwards, people will have different traditions of showing respect to others (others can be elders, youngsters, children, anybody or anything for that matter) verbally, non verbally, by way of gestures, or by just the actions you perform. The point I am trying to make here is, that’s the way Vivek had been taught and brought up from early childhood. He will continue to do it where ever he goes, how much ever old he grows.

As a parent, show, demonstrate your children how one should behave, live, adhere to values by setting an example. Preach less.

If any child happens to read this, my request to her is - continue to observe, learn, emulate. But before emulating she should ask her parents or her teacher whether she is doing the right thing.

YIELD or GIVE WAY

Oh man, I screamed as I applied sudden brakes. I was going at a fairly high speed on the main road.  One two wheeler entered from the left side road and took a swift left turn in front of me, forget about slowing down or stopping, he didn’t even bother to look whether anybody was coming from main road. That reminded of that traffic signal “inverted triangle” with “YIELD” written on the middle. I had seen it in the US not in India, so as usual I did that, when in doubt google! Ah, I did get the answer.

 In road transport, a yield (Canada, Ireland, South Africa, South Korea and the United States) or give way (United Kingdom, other Commonwealth and English-speaking countries) traffic sign indicates that each driver must prepare to stop if necessary to let a driver on another approach proceed.

No wonder I didn’t find YIELD sign boards on Bangalore roads. The same phenomenon - Right hand drive Vs Left hand drive, Celsius Vs Fahrenheit, 220 Volt  Vs 110 Volt, 50 Hz Vs 60 Hz, GIVE WAY Vs YIELD. Wait a sec,  I haven’t seen a GIVE WAY signboard either. It could be because we have those unscientific humps 1 foot high, quarter foot wide that can make people slow down. Still I would rather urge the authorities to put up those GIVE WAY “inverted red triangles”. Even if people would not realize the actual purpose of it, some may mistakenly be reminded of the symbol for another good nationwide initiative – “human population control” !

People are so impatient and intolerant now a days, they do not want to yield or give way even an inch.

I was at the veterinarian’s place the other day, took my dog for routine vaccination. I waited outside, I was the only one apart from the one being inside the doctor’s room. Two people got down with their pets simultaneously, one in an auto rickshaw, the other in his car. It was like a photo finish as it was very difficult to identify who had arrived first. CCTV is not around to check it. As my job was done, I got out of the Vet’s room, I saw heavy argument between these two. Who should enter first? As their decibel levels increased, even dogs joined the party. Many dogs had arrived by then with their masters, all started barking. It looked like a protest by dogs demanding suspension of Vet’s assistant who had injected one of their friends rather painfully on the previous day ! Vet had to come out, pacify and solve the issue. I do not understand what is wrong in one of them giving way for the other. It is a matter of waiting for another 15 minutes. If I had been one of them, I would have happily allowed the other to go first. In those 15 minutes I could have talked to some other dog, or perhaps to the owner of the dog itself if she was found attractive!!

I remember fight between two siblings when I was a kid. It was in a village. Both these guys were well off and had acres of fertile land, rubber plantations. The fight was on a compound wall constructed by the elder one who had encroached by 2 feet. I still remember the argument he put forward to his dad, who was living with younger one “ Dad, don’t argue too much, don’t be too smart. After all there is age gap of only 25 years between you and me ! “ People don’t want to yield even 2 feet when they have acres of land, they don't mind going any extend to abuse "others".

I used to travel to town by train to attend college from the same village. Those journeys were interesting not because it was free for me as my dad was working in railways. Every day one can witness fights or arguments, sellers of petty but interesting stuff, can learn playing rummy and what not? That day the train just pulled into the starting station. As usual, I got through the back door ( door on the non-platform side ) and secured a window seat. I saw a bag kept in the opposite side window seat, kept through the window by somebody to reserve the seat, even before boarding the train. I saw a rude face, non smiling, approaching the seat, kept the bag beside him and sat on the seat. 5 minutes later another rude, non smiling face appeared and started fighting with the first one, demanding to give way the seat as he was the one who had reserved it. It was heating up, I even offered my window seat, though it was hard earned by me. Both of them did not accept my offer. There was no compromise, finally “bag man” took his bag, said a few words which I cannot mention here and walked out to get into another compartment. I am pretty sure he had to travel standing, as the train was jam packed. Not only people do not want to give way, the anger makes them blind even to accept a reasonable compromise.

Recently I was driving back after a visit to temple. It was late in the evening. I took a right to the side road from the busy main road. I found another car approaching really fast from a distance. I blinked my high beam suggesting he needed to wait, there was no way both of us could go as cars were parked on both sides of the road. He didn’t honor it, came in front of me and stopped. I also stopped and no way I could go reverse because it was heavy traffic there. He could go back but he had to cover a long distance. He blinked his headlights twice. I switched off ignition of my car. He honked. I just pulled the lever to open the bonnet. He rolled the window down and started shouting. I opened the door and stepped out. (Don’t mistake me I was in no mood to have a fight with him, especially after a peaceful prayer at temple ). I just opened the bonnet checked 3 things I know of only - battery, engine oil level and wiper fluid level. He is still honking. I pulled a few things which are firmly fixed to the car. I didn’t know what purpose they served, I did not want them to come in to my hands either as it would result in breakdown of the car. I wanted to pretend that the car had broken down. Public gathered, asked the honking man to go back and they were ready to push my car. As he backtracked, I just started the car, thanked the public and took off. There are peaceful ways to overcome these situations.

I got results of my routine annual health check up this morning. All parameters are normal. My give way attitude when stakes are not that high and my peaceful approach when I need to win, are paying me rich dividends, no doubt!

High and Dry

I read a news article about UK weather, thousands of fish killed after water receded from River Thames flooding. As the river flooded, fresh water fish had moved into fields, a new fresh environment for them. But the happiness short-lived as water receded and those poor creatures were left high and dry. They died of suffocation.

Weren’t we left high and dry in many a situation? Haven’t we done this to others too!

(I am sure all would know the phrase “leave someone high and dry” means, in case somebody does not know, I do not want to leave that person high and dry !

Leave someone high and dry means :

-       You are left helpless in a situation because you aren't given something you need or were promised

-       to leave someone unsupported and unable to maneuver; to leave someone helpless 

-       to put someone in a very difficult situation which they have no way of making better)

I had joined new team in my organization in business development support role. My first opportunity to prove my mettle, a multimillion prospect team from US was visiting us and we had to present our capabilities to them to grab the order. My boss created enough hype, told this was a huge opportunity for me to get a good first impression. Towards a fast career path, salary hikes what not.   He left it to myself to handle. I spent lots of time understanding the customer profile, their technology base, business areas, their customers, their competitors etc etc. I also spent more time in gathering all the relevant past experience of our organization, capabilities to show case to the customer to convey him that, yes we can do this. Previous day of the customer visit, boss called me, made me present in front of him, and said good show. I rehearsed the presentation in front of the mirror 5 times, once while taking bath of course with no mirror, once while having breakfast for a final time. Yes, customer team entered, boss entered, boss’s boss entered the room. I am standing, ready to go for the kill. My boss whispered in my ears “I will present this, if needed I will ask you to pitch in”. No pitching in, not a word of gratitude in public or private from him.

One month down the line, similar customer, this time from UK, similar order, same hype from my boss. But not the same effort from me. He is going to steal it from me anyways with no reward for me, so why should I. I did a shabby job of preparation and presented to him the previous day. Again he said, good show !. Customer walked in, my boss walked in and I was waiting for my boss to whisper in my ears this time also. He just took his seat and said, “yes you can start now”! My BP was “high” and my throat was “dry” throughout the presentation. Later I realized from my peers that my boss was not at all interested in winning projects, he just wanted to impress his boss with his presentation skills. (His boss was missing during UK customer visit!)

My last trip to Tirupati, I cannot forget it. Usually we used to drive down from Bangalore, this time we thought we will go by one of those “conducted trips” by travel agencies. I approached one of them. A/C office, fully carpeted, nice fragrance, a cup of tea, only 10% down payment rest can be paid after a week, photographs and credentials by people who had already availed their services, I was impressed. I cursed myself for not approaching this guy earlier.

The evening arrived. We packed up our stuff, waiting for the bus to arrive. Bus came 2 hours late. 3 AM we were asked to get down in front of a hotel which was half constructed. I tried to open the room given to us. The room was already open, two people jumped out of the bed and vanished in front of us. I entered the bath room, Indian style commode, no issues for me. But only half of the commode was there. The other half they might have used for the next room. Managed to get out of the room somehow after freshening up. They took us to some other place 10 KMs away and made us stand in the queue from 5 AM for 2 hours to get the magic band tied on to our hands. We were fed rock like idlis and chutney with traces of coconut in it. Stood in the Darshan queue as usual and completed it in 3 hours. The torture to me did continue during return trip in the bus. They had screened a Telugu movie with a villain like unknown hero doing some hysterics. Volume was so high I could not sleep either. Only good time I had was those 3 hours in the darshan queue and especially those 30 seconds I was allowed to have darshan in front of god. Probably that’s what the travel agent meant by “Happy Darshan” ensured!

Sometimes people may put you into high and dry situation, unintentionally. One Sunday we all started to Nandi Hills. All of us were visiting that place first time but for my cousin, Thambi. He was on the lead. On the way, apart from many good things about that place, he mentioned about abundance of monkeys there. We were all excited. We hadn’t seen those many monkeys at one place. As we reached Nandi Hills and started walking, my father told “We should have come on a working day”. We looked at him surprisingly –doesn’t he know that we can’t get leave that easily, after all, places like Nandi Hills are meant for a holiday only. He just added “looks like it’s a holiday for monkeys too!”. To our disappointment, more so for Thambi, we could not spot a single monkey on that day. (I had visited Nandi Hills many times after that and had witnessed huge groups of monkeys! )

There are some smart guys who can put the other person in high and dry situation when attempted on them. Suri, my uncle is one of them. He was just out of college and he got a job. Sharmaji, Suri’s uncle was trying to venture into a LIC agent’s role, new one for him. He met Suri one day and explained to him the benefits of taking a policy, how it can meet long term financial goals while insuring one’s life etc. Suri remarked “ wonderful, I am not sure why I didn’t think of this earlier”. Sharmaji was over excited, another step towards meeting his target.

One week passed. No attempt from Suri to initiate the process. Sharmaji approached him with the form and told him he would pay the first premium for Suri. Policy opened. Next month, installment was due, in fact over-due by a week. Suri had not paid the installment. Sharmaji came to Suri said “I paid for this month also, next month onward you can start paying”. Suri again said “ wonderful”. Third installment was over-due by 2 weeks. No action from Suri. This time no action from Sharmaji either. Policy discontinued for ever.

What’s the fun if we do not get into high and dry situations once in a while, if they are not too taxing? That will make us learn things our own and make us well prepared for the next one!

I fell today

I fell today.

I was taking my dog out for a walk. Stamped on something, slipped and fell down on my knees. As I was recovering from the shock, I saw two people one just running away from me, the other one standing still. Then I suddenly realized that the leash of my dog is not my in hand. I found him sniffing my foot, as if he is inquiring me whether I am alright. My dog was the reason for those two people not coming near me and offer any help. That taught me two things, when I fall, your closest friend will always be with you. There will always be people around you who want to help, but they can be helpless.

I examined my body. A bruise on my right knee. Left thumb is a bit numb. Should be all right. Moved another 10 steps, my right shoulder there is a pain, my left lower back again there is pain. Even if the point of contact while falling was my knees and hands, there is a wide spread impact. One of my friends had a small loss in his business. Not only that he cut down his going to club/bar to once a week, his wife started going in a Swift instead of in the Audi, that too with no smile on her face, I stopped seeing his 7 year old son on Saturday mornings in that white kungfu dress, practicing all the way while getting into the car.

I was too careless, stamped on a veneer sheet, thinking it is a piece of paper that led me into this fall. Carelessness can cost you too much. In my home town, this old man heard the door bell ringing in the morning 5:30. As usual he carelessly opened the door partially and just put only his hand outside, showed the milk vessel thinking it is the milkman. “Oh Mijje Venkatapati” (Oh my Venkatachalapati, in Konkani. My folks back in my home town are devotees of Lord Venakatachalapti ), that’s all he remembers calling out himself loudly.  Somebody pulled him out, covered his face with chloroform laced towel and looted the valuables from his house.

 I had fallen many times before. Once cow dung, some other time a banana peel, another time a KFC bucket, due to many objects thrown by people at different levels in the society. Does that mean I will stop walking? I will walk and surely fall – how soon and by what object is the only question. If that is the case, I would have stopped going to restaurants. (Last week I went to “Kunds” to have Indian barbeque. Today I am going to “Barbeque Nation” to have authentic barbeques). I had stomach upsets many times after having food outside. Once I had taken a prospective customer for dinner in a 5 star hotel. He had come down from Minneapolis to discuss the possibility of awarding a project to us.  Saw him off at the airport and returned home. Cramps, stomach pain, vomiting sensation, fever, head ache I had all possible symptoms of strong diarrhea. After visiting the doctor next day morning and taking some medicines I became somewhat ok, and then only I remembered my customer. Shot him a one liner email “how was your journey back?”. He replied, “Bad. I could not sit continuously for 10 minutes in my seat for the first 1 hour of the journey and could not move an inch from my seat for the rest of my journey. I think it is the welcome drink they gave me on board”.  I didn't tell my story to him, I just replied, “Terrible, I feel sorry for you”. As such the chances of getting that project were very less.

Another reason for my fall could be my chappals. They are fairly old, it was 1.5 inch thick when I bought it, would be hardly quarter inch now, totally bald at the bottom. If we use tools or accessories that are almost at the verge of retirement, we can get hurt. Once I was checking whether the power is coming in that socket in my wall. I inserted the tester, which was easily more than 10 years old. It was not glowing, I got really annoyed, I had connected properly this time with no distractions around. In that anger I inserted the tester more. I came to know not only that there was power, but that it is really powerful. My hand started trembling for a few minutes. I threw that tester away and bought a new one. I can afford to buy a new tester but not to miss any upcoming opportunity of “testing” times.

At times, these falls can be advantageous also. We tried to play volley ball in a neighboring empty site, this is 15 years back. If I had told it’s just a few years back no one would believe it. Forget about my physique, where are those empty sites now to play, that too volley ball. One old gentle man used to come and watch our adventure. Not only watching, he used to provide unbiased opinion while we were arguing for each point. That day we just tied the net, not even got into the first argument, our man fainted, fell down. We rushed him to hospital. Doctors ruled out of any cardiac stroke, as his wife was suspecting since he had that in his family history. It was just a case of anemia. But doctors advised him to be in the hospital for couple of days for observation, obviously for their advantage.  Next day we went and visited him, he was extremely delighted. “ Look this fall actually helped me in a big way. My wife never allowed me to eat a piece of “parippu vada” ( masala vada, a snack deep fried in oil ) worrying it would harm my heart. See what I am eating now. Palada ( sweetest dish made of milk, rice flakes and sugar, very popular in Kerala. One table spoon of it can give you calories worth 5 big red apples)”. His happiness had no bounds.

What do you think happened to me today? I sat in front of my laptop computer thinking as what I would write today. My mind was blank for 10 minutes. Suddenly my fall in the morning came to my rescue!

Yep, my right knee is still paining a bit. Doesn’t  matter.  Let me get up, I need to get ready for a birth day treat from my cousin. You too have a happy meal today, that too free!

Relocate

I read in yesterday’s newspaper that monkey menace is on the rise in Bangalore city. Stray dog problems are the ones I used to hear, now from monkeys.  These are bonnet macaques primarily found in south India. Though they normally live in jungles on trees, they are attracted more towards urban areas as food is abundant. Experts say that trans-location is not practical approach as they may spread disease to wild life if they are moved to forests. If they are shunted to rural areas, the problem will remain, this time villagers have to bear the brunt of it. So the authorities are planning to extend ABC (animal birth control) programme to monkeys also, which would be economical and practical. Good or bad, the news is that their population is on the decline in Bangalore and they may disappear in a decade. I presume it is mainly because of increased intolerance by us, definitely not because of lack of food. (In fact it is mentioned in the news that 2 monkeys were shot dead by residents a few days ago).

I have to believe that is the case, I used to see monkeys in my area quite a few years back. Not anymore, not a single one I can spot now. In one occasion, a monkey picked up a bundle of currency notes from bag belonging to one of our employees. It happily went and sat on the roof holding the bundle. People started shouting, jumping up and down exactly as it does, throwing stones at it (since they didn’t have similar bundles of notes to throw at it as cap seller did many years back! ). We were scared that it would tear the notes into pieces and shower them on to us. Luckily, it didn’t happen. After a while, it dropped the bundle and ran off. Barring pilfering bananas, other food items or fancy items I never heard them attacking humans, like stray dogs do. I am not sure why they had to be shot dead, maybe I am undermining the problems the residents have faced.

Why all this monkey business today?

I do see a strong similarity between this and people migrating to Bangalore city. According to provisional census 2011 data, Bangalore's population has grown by 46.68 per cent between 2001 and 2011, up by nearly 12 percentage points over the growth rate of 35 per cent in the previous decade. Bangalore’s growth rate is the highest among all the metros in the country. Over a third of Karnataka’s population increase in the last decade has happened in Bangalore. Primarily because of job opportunities. Unlike in monkeys’ case, there is no way the population can come down. It will only explode further in coming years. Many cities in India are no different, may be many of them don't have monkeys there.

Once cities grow at this exponential rate, there will always be need for more development or modernization within city itself, people may have to relocate. I know in one locality near where I live, people who have been living there for 25 years were asked to vacate their houses, to make way for public private partnership that aims at constructing a shopping mall and a housing complex. It is in the news for many years now, residents are unwilling to relocate, even if temporarily, though they are promised a housing colony next to this project. They, most of them daily labourers, have been opposing the relocation to 10 Kms away from where they live, as there will not be any job opportunities there, their children have to discontinue their studies, they are unsure of the time when they will get their new houses. I will not be the right person to comment on who is right or wrong, my knowledge is limited to what I saw in newspapers, but the fact is that many are going through hard times, project is getting delayed.

People who are well settled here for many years, it is difficult to relocate to some other place once they think of their jobs, friends circle, childrens’ education, non-sultry weather, by-two coffee etc. But the rate at which this city is getting choked, they have to think of relocation seriously not because of intolerance by others, not because of fear of somebody shooting them down, definitely not because of prospect of a full fledged compulsory HBC (Human Birth Control) programme getting launched. Water shortage, pollution, traffic, high cost of living - all these point them towards that direction. Unless city expands by no bounds in a short span of time. Past track record does not make anyone optimistic about that.

Dirty Money

It was a sweet morning today. It is Vidya’s, my cousin’s birthday. I had a huge piece of delicious cake. The sweetness just doubled when I realized that I am having the cake only after completing my duty of posting my birth day wishes on her FB page. 

I looked at the first page on the news paper. There are no accidents, suicides, rapes, child abuses, even protests !, sweetness did not dampen at all. 

One thing that caught my attention was RBI’s announcement.

RBI is planning to withdraw currency notes which had been printed prior to year 2005 to reduce circulation of fake notes. So, those of you who have liquid cash at home, either black or white, please go through the reverse side of all of them carefully, how much ever big that bundle be. If you find no year printed on them, then get rid of them quickly. There is every likelihood of they been printed not by RBI  but by somebody else. If you produce those old notes in a bank after a few months, you will be harassed by the bank officials by many means, one prominent one would be by asking you to produce your aadhar card!

In my opinion, the currency notes need to be replaced every year if not more frequently. The treatment they get is so bad, they also need a break ! People use them as scribble pads to write phone numbers, convey ILU messages and symbols, to do quick arithmetic on how much more income tax needs to be paid – (mis)uses are many. They become so soiled and dirty with no time, at no fault of theirs.

I have seen some of them using their tongue to moist their fingers while counting notes. They tend to forget that those notes had gone through many "dirty" hands of rich/elite as well as those of poor. They better not dirty them more.

I reluctantly accept balance money from some vegetable vendors when they take currency from some part of their anatomy. I know, money is liked by all, but is it so darling to be kept there? I will not explain more on this. If people understood, well and good. Those who did not understand, it’s still better. I haven’t told them anything. 

I am in no two minds in suggesting RBI to print pictures of wanted criminals in some of the denominations. Not only that we can throw mud on their faces as much as we want, but also it would be easy for the cops to nab them. ( this reminded me of the news I read yesterday. A wanted criminal posted his own “wanted ad” in his FB page. A lady cope “liked” it in FB and chatted with him for a while to know his whereabouts and caught him. Yet another use of FB ! ).

We had a magic show at our school while I was in 3^rd standard. Magician after doing a few tricks asked whether any one of us had a 5 rupee note. ( that time with 5 rupees one can buy 2 KG of rice). Many of us didn’t have. Those who had were reluctant to give, they would have been happier to part with their text books instead. One bold guy from back row gave the note to the magician. The magician made a few noises, similar to those made by chimpancies at Mysore zoo ( I loved interacting with them whenever I visited there, my favorite ones ). Then he lighted a match and burnt the 5 rupee note, in front of us. “Thud”, we heard a noise. The bold guy at the back fainted, fell down. He could not imagine going back home without giving that note to the grocer. Sprinkling little water, showing him his original 5 rupee note, he regained consciousness and enjoyed the rest of the show. Even the magicians do not spare these poor currencies.

I agree, rupee has been always week, much weaker now. But it does not deserve  this level of ill-treatment.

It's free for the little one

We need to contribute to charity. We need to be socially responsible and need to help the unprivileged ones.

Let me start with the key message today. There is a reason behind this. Couple of days back, my friend Sachin shared one of my posts to his friends telling them to “read till the end”. Though he mentioned that in a different context, it was an eye opener to me. I realized that I was counting chickens too soon, by patting myself at the back seeing those number of page views of my blogs in the stats page. There would be people who would get retired hurt, after reading first few lines. So this time I punched those lines upfront, so that everybody sees the key message at least before they switch. There could be more drop outs this time; I don’t mind taking that risk on this topic.

For those who are still with me, let me continue.

A few years back, it was a pleasant evening. We were returning from the musical fountains, the place I love to go any time. Neither music is good there nor the fountains, but the open air atmosphere, lots of lung space, greenery, sweet corn vendors, defunct windmill, childrens park all these attract me. I was at a traffic signal. The boy was trying to sell those small tricolour flags, as it was Aug 14^th. He approached a car on my right from the driver’s side. The father who was driving the car vehemently nodded, indicating a big no. I couldn't blame the father, one should not encourage such things. The boy didn't give up. He came to the other side of the car much closer to me this time. There was a small kid smiling and waving hands sitting in its mother’s laps. I knew, this boy spotted an opportunity, the “little one” would demand one and the parents have to buy. As I expected, the enterprising “little one” picked up one of the flags from that bunch, even before the boy could offer. The boy didn't wait for the money, he just moved to the next vehicle behind. The mother hurriedly picked up some money and gestured the boy to come back. The boy just smiled and said in Kannada, “Puttanige free. Duddu beda” (It’s free for the little one. No money required).

I hoped, sincerely hoped that this boy reached to somebody’s hands who can provide him education and guidance for a bright future. I saw goodness in him. I saw love in him. I saw value in him. There are many such people who are equal or more than equal to me in intelligence, talent, willingness to work hard etc. But they were not privileged like me, so they could not become like me.

I know many NGOs are into social activities. Many corporates fund these initiatives. Many people do this on their individual capacity.

I do nothing. I don’t contribute to any NGO. I don’t help any underprivileged.  I go to a good restaurant for lunch. I go for a movie if the review is good. It is not that I can’t spare some money for charity. It is not that I have the willingness to contribute for a social cause. The problem lies somewhere else.

I, being a miser (let me correct it, a person looking value for money that I spend), am not aware of any genuine organization which does social service selflessly with no corruption. There may be people who would be contributing without worrying about how their money is spent, I salute them. There may be people who take interest and evaluate the genuine options and then contribute. I salute them more. I simply don’t have the mind-share or time to do either of these.

Is there way I can be influenced? Yes. The media can cover more of these initiatives, vouched by credible personalities from the society. They can cut down 0.0005% of their going around sensational news like suicides, murders, terror attacks, political issues, sports and use that time for promoting charity. One does understand that they need to cover those sensational news to increase viewership/readership for their own survival.  But a bit on this side can bring in change in people like me and much more to the needy. I may forgo one of those lunches or movies for a social cause.

I see very few posts in FB promoting charity. Are all my friends like me? I hate to believe that, if at all it is true. When people come across such good initiatives, they can share more details of those in social networking platforms in addition to sharing weather reports, stock updates and other “interesting” stuff. People like me would then start contributing.

Negativity

I was talking to my aunt over phone last week. As usual I asked, “how are you?”. 

“What to say, this terrible leg pain is killing me. I can’t keep my left foot down”.

I empathized with her “Oh, that’s bad. What is the reason?”.

“No idea, where is the time for me to go and check with the doctor. Let me perish like this”.

I realized things are not going as I wanted, so I tried to change the topic. “How is the weather there?”

“Better not to talk about that, it is winter, cold. That might be the reason for this sickening pain”.

I was in no mood to give up. “How are others especially the grand children?”

“They are the ones adding to my misery. I have to run around them so much that aggravated my pain”

I tried for the last and final time. “ What did you eat today?”

“That stupid kappa ( tapioca, staple food in Kerala ). It creates gastric problems throughout the body and adds to my horrible leg pain”.

I gave up.  I patiently listened to her “painful” story for another 10 minutes before I hung up.

My aunt was too much frustrated with her acute pain and that day she wanted to talk only about that.

I met Madhu, one of my friends a month back. In fact I was meeting him after 3 years or so. He just looked at me top to bottom, paused for a while and said “You are almost bald, you lost all your hair”.  He used to comment about my pot belly earlier. This time thanks to a bit of jogging and diet control I managed to make it less visible. This time one area where he could score over me was my head, as he was “growing” a larger belly than me, but he had much more hair than I did.

Madhu finds happiness in his strength areas, especially when he is able to point it out as a weak area to the other party.

I had to attend an important function at my home town last month. Since I came to know about that very late I could not get tickets by train. Flight was any way too expensive for me, so I didn’t bother to even go there. Only option left for me was then that famous multi-axle a/c night bus. Hearing this my friend told me, “Shenoy, be careful. You are aware of those fire accidents recently”. (What care can I take? The best I can do is sit awake in the bus throughout the night, close to the emergency exit glass window holding the heaviest hammer that I can! I am trying to visualize my posture for 10+ hours journey!!!)

My friend was so caring for me and trying to caution me.

I switched my job from a public sector company to a private one. I told my uncle about the change in my job, salary, life style etc ! He, who had been working for another public sector for many years remarked “Public sector would have been better, they are more stable. Don’t trust these private ones; they may shut shop any time”.

Uncle had strong perceptions based on his own experience and wanted to share it with me.

People say, try to avoid making friends who are negative. They can pull you down. I don’t agree with that. If a positive person understands why others talk negatively, what circumstances make them talk like that, then there is no harm.  He will brush aside some of these cynicism and move on, that is why he is positive. In fact the positive person can pull others out of their negativity.

So if you think you are too negative, look for the company of the positives. If you are positive, don’t change anything, maintain status quo.

Creativity - Unlimited

I was about to take my bike out this morning. I normally use my bike – Hero Honda Splendor+ for short distances, because

a. I can overtake others from left, right and center in Bangalore roads

b. It is so fuel efficient, if I run out of both fuel and cash all I need to do is to take to the nearest petrol pump and make my little bike inhale petrol fumes for 5 minutes. I can easily ride another 2 KMs.

Coming back to my morning worry, I noticed the bike is in first gear and the pillion footrests are not folded back after use. This happens only when my son is in town and he uses it to take his girlfriend out for a movie or an ice cream. Since he is not in town, I was wondering who would have done this. Normally I keep the bike in neutral position with pillion footrests folded back nicely! Suddenly I realized my little friend, Nithya ( my cousin’s daughter) was at home last evening and I had seen her climbing on to bike, even after being cautioned by her cautious dad. For sure, she must have tried a few things with no fear. The reason why she tried those, I will come to know shortly through FB or otherwise!

My friend had an interesting story to tell. One day his neighbor, came running to his house asking if there were any problems with his TV. My friend just checked and told that there was no issue. I believe the old man was trying to do some “asanas” along with the instructor, watching one of those “yoga” channels. Suryanamaskara was about to start, he closed his eyes took a deep breath, he started hearing “Munni Badnaam huyi…” - channel had changed to MTV by itself. With lots of effort he switched back to his “yoga” channel. By that time Suryanamaskara was over, the new asana was about to start, Padmasana. Same preparation, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, he started hearing some vague music. Opened his eyes to see some ladies with interesting dress code walking towards him, it was Fashion TV this time for a change! Later he brought in the TV mechanic, the cablewala but they could not simulate and identify the problem. After 2 days, my friend, though he didn’t know ABCD of TV mechanism could himself identify the root cause of the problem. It was his 13 year old son! His ever inquisitive son was so eager to prove the following:

1.     Remote of his TV can work on his neighbor’s TV too

2.     His Remote can work 12 feet more the distance than normally he uses for his TV to operate his neighbor's TV sitting at his own house

3.     He can make a soft spoken, ever smiling and peaceful old man angry and annoyed

My brother-in-law and family were visiting us. They had a 6 year old son. It’s extremely difficult for anybody to make him sit at one place. He has to do some mischief or other. Thanks to Romeo and Juliet (my pet dogs), he limited his work place on the dining table at my house, as he was scared of them. 10 minutes on the table, I found my water bottle became a plastic club with a thin smooth handle at one end and with such a finish. I would have taken at least a few hours to achieve that, though I am not sure of the end result. I knew the bottle was of no use any more, I could only smile as I was amassed by his creativity and finesse.

At young age, most of us were like that. We had that attitude like in the Tamil song by poet Kannadasan “ponaal pogattum poda” (if it went, let it be gone – My father was a big fan of this song and I picked this from him). We were ready to experiment new things with no fear. Due to various factors, both internal and external, as we grow we become less creative, less risk taking. Why my friend, my relative etc etc. even I had written two short dramas at the age of 11. I did not write anything after that, except for professional and academic needs, till I started this blog. There were many factors like my focus being shifted more towards studies, lack of time, peer pressure, etc but one of the definite reasons was criticism by elders that time. They looked at those dramas and asked me “why are you wasting your time?” I did not have the courage to overcome such criticism then. If somebody asks me the same question now, the answer would be “The whole purpose of my writing is to waste my time” .

Luckily there are people who can overcome these roadblocks and boldly carry out their creative work with lots passion. That is the very reason, we have so many useful and wonderful things around us which was conceptualized by these creative people. Instead of leaving this to others, it would be nice if we encourage and nurture such creative behavior if we find at our homes.

“Creativity shall start at home” !

"Kariacha Maarikko"

“I will be late today, will not be back definitely before 11, you can have dinner and go to sleep, and do remember to secure the back door well”, I was amused overhearing a man telling this to his wife loudly while getting on to his bike. He went like a flash. It looked like he was in a hurry, highly excited about something, while starting off to office. The road was empty and luckily for him I was the only person who overheard it and I was not in a mood to break in and rob on that day!

We used to play basket ball during PT hour in the early morning, during our institute days. Let me stand corrected. My friends used to play and I used watch the fun. There was one guy who used to play really well but he had a “deficiency” also. He had one, only one, shorts that he would wear every day, that too a deep red one. We nick named him “Lal Chaddi” ( Red shorts in Hindi ) for our  internal consumption which some how he came to know. He didn’t like it. So we stopped calling him Lal Chaddi (LC). In one important match, my friend Hari, who also used to play really well (by the way Hari had many shorts unlike LC), was near the basket, unguarded. He found the ball with our friend LC. In that anxiety, he didn’t get LC’s real name quickly and he had to shout loudly “ Pass the ball to me Lal Chaddi, pass”. LC was furious, he just through the ball randomly. Losing opportunity of getting 2 points at a crucial juncture of the match was bad, but worse was everybody calling LC by nickname then on, which he hated the most.

The other day somebody informed me about the theft at my aunt’s place. Cops were able to catch the thief and recover part of the stolen jewelry. This is what I think would have happened  based on what I heard and what I know about this aunt. Aunt would have been out on that day to buy jewelry for her daughter’s wedding. On the way to the bus stop she met her neighbor. Knowing well that her neighbor’s daughter’s marriage was over just a month back, also knowing well that lots of jewelry was used to cover the bride’s body that day, my aunt also did not want to be any less. To stress the point, she was a bit louder in telling her neighbor the amount of gold she was planning to buy ( of course with a min exaggeration of 20%). She did not realize that the thief was overhearing this and following her throughout then after. He broke into her house that night and took away all the gold without giving her an opportunity to deposit it in the bank lockers next day!

It was during one of those summer holidays. I with my family was in Ooty for a couple of days to have some fun.  We were at the Doddabetta telescopic observatory. Wife & kids went on top to watch the mountains and clouds close by through telescope.  I just sat in one place as I preferred to watch nature with naked eyes rather than struggling to see it through a telescope, many a times with only one eye. Closed my eyes to give some rest, but kept the ears open hopping to hear something unusual. (I always wonder why my ears never get tired so much like my eyes!). I was not disappointed. “Kariacha, see that hill. Kariacha see this butterfly. Kariacha let’s go for a horse ride”. I opened my eyes, had a glimpse of Kariachan & his wife, a young couple. In every remark, she had to call her husband by name, loudly. I could understand her excitement, may be her first trip to Ooty, may be her first experience of such cold weather which is unheard of in almost all part of Kerala, may be they just got married and she was not yet bored of calling his name !

My folks were back after watching every cloud and every peak. I started driving back to hotel. As I just got into the road from parking lot I saw the same Kariachan walking in the middle of the road holding hands tightly with his wife. I just rolled the window down and shouted in Malayalam “Kariacha Maarikko” (move off Kariacha ). I could see the astonishment in my wife's eyes ! Kariachan did move and I just sped away. Even today Kariachan must be trying hard to place this person (me). He thinks this person knew him, but did not stop even to say a “hi”. Kariachan was lucky, as I was not a cone man. (For a small time cone man, this much private information is good enough to dupe somebody and make a quick buck in a tourist spot like Ooty, he does not need complex biometrics data from Aadhar database for that!)

When you are highly excited try applying all relaxation techniques that you know, I’m sure you do that anyway ! Still if you don’t succeed and if you reach a state of talking loud with no control – just utter these 2 words “Kariacha Maarikko” exactly 5 times. That might reduce your voice by a few decibels. Moreover it will not mean anything to anybody, will do no harm, no need to control at all!!!

“Kariacha Maarikko”
“Kariacha Maarikko”
“Kariacha Maarikko”
“Kariacha Maarikko”
“Kariacha Maarikko”

Starting Trouble

This morning as I woke up, I decided - no morning walk today. Leg is paining, nose is blocked, sore throat, head ache and feverish. After having a cup of tea and completing routine morning activities, felt a bit better. So I decided to take my pets out for a walk, the task I was planning to pass it on to my wife otherwise. Since that gave me the required warm up, I set off for my usual walking practice and I could complete it as usual.

It was just a starting trouble. When one hears “starting trouble” first thing that comes to mind is car! I too had my first car. It was Fiat Premium Padmini, that too “Deluxe model”. Not used by one or two, but misused by many. I got it in an auction. It was company car and they were planning to get rid of it. Me being trying to drive a car for the first time with no instructor beside me, and also looking at the small budget I had, I went for this option. My friend drove it and parked it in front my house. First few days I was hesitant to take it out. It was primarily used by my kids to play around, inside. With a lot of courage I managed to take it for a drive in the early hours of the morning for obvious reasons. In a few weeks time, I was faced with starting trouble. Car just refused to start. I had seen people starting the car by pushing, took help from wife and a few passersby to push the car. They managed to push the car for 20 meters or so, but no luck, car didn’t start.

A security guard watching all this came forward and asked “ Mein try karoon ( shall I try) ?”. Why not, I gave him green signal happily. He got in to the driver’s seat and me joining the pushing force. Another 30 meters, car started with a jiggle as if somebody had tickled it from all directions. Then I came to know from him that, sitting idle inside the car, keeping the ignition on, watching others push from rear view mirror alone won’t help. One needs to hold the clutch, put the car in second gear, and then release the clutch once the car attains some reasonable speed by pushing! Tickling and jiggling went on for some more months till I disposed the car and bought a new one.

My wife also had starting problem with this car, not while starting the car per say but while trying to start learning on it. She was also novice after obtaining Driving License. I had to force her so much and convince her that even if she made a few mistakes, no more damage can happen to this car. Whatever had to happen, had already happened. Since it was a single long seat in the front ( not the bucket seats ), I could sit so close to her that it was rather easy for me to punish her verbally and physically whenever she made a mistake. There were too many punishments from me for her to continue, so she gave up! Only beneficiaries were our kids at the rear who had non-stop entertainment!

Normally starting troubles are “cured” by a bit of warm up; take smaller, simpler steps first. I found a reverse one from a gentleman in a New Year eve party a few years back in our apartment complex. This gentle man was relative of one our neighbors and he happened to be there, so he joined us for the party. As the drinks session started, he took his peg and moved backwards, turned to the other side, as if he didn’t want others to watch him drinking. I closely followed him to see what was happening, nosy habits never die ! He closed his eyes, held his nostrils with left hand and in one shot he finished the entire stuff ! Then he shook his head rigorously like Roamy (my pet dog) does while water droplets fall on his head ! The gentle man was embarrassed to see me when he opened his eyes. He told “This is just the starting trouble. Now I am fit. I can drink slowly a few more pegs, sipping ”!

Trouble may arise out of starting something new, in a way one can call that also a starting trouble. This retired man from government services was deeply worried when his only son, college dropout, started wearing stud in one ear, sporting vague beard, getting up late and returning home even “later”! He decided to start something his own, so that he could bring in his son also. He started a franchise of some traditional phrama products that help people who have breathing problems. Being himself a chronic asthma patient, he thought this would be his best bet! I didn’t see any customers for days together when I was passing by his shop. I didn’t see his son either.  It was him alone, trying to breathe hard and staring at those unsold “breathe easy” products. He had to shut shop in a few months time, wasting a good part of his retirement benefits.

Like starting, there is stopping trouble too. We were at our friend’s place that evening. As we were generally chatting, the electricity went off. Candle was the only option, as there were no home inverters or generators those days. As soon as the power came back, I saw his son ( 9 years old ) jumping from his seat and putting out the candle. And I could hear wild screams and cries from his daughter ( 5 years old ) who was otherwise sitting quietly watching the burning candle. It took a while for me to understand what had happened. She wanted to put out the candle and her bro didn’t give her that opportunity. Simple problem, even simpler solution I thought! I just lit the candle again and asked her to put it out. “No no no… I want to put it out that time” she kept on crying. Since I couldn’t go to the past to simulate, I tried all tricks to stop her crying. I finally succeeded when she opened up for a dance performance in front of me. “Please don’t go there at all, once she starts dancing, you may have to put double the effort to make her stop” my friend couldn't stop warning me.

I do have stopping trouble too, I may go on and on writing like this. With so much of effort, let me stop here for the time being. 

Have a great weekend.

Too much of a good thing

Tweeting is a good thing. Your tweet can influence people. It can enlighten people. It can provoke people with no fear of immediate physical attack. And many more such things. But too much of it may do you harm as well. After reading today's news paper I can't agree more to this. With millions of followers and having tweeted in multiple thousands of occasions, one is at the risk of losing his job and more importantly his wife, mainly because of his tweeting.

If you have too much of a good thing, pleasant can become unpleasant. Not only for you but for others as well.

I have an uncle who is very particular about taking care of his guests. “Atithi Devo Bhava” (“The guest is god” in Sanskrit - a language which is now studied more by foreigners than us) is his key principle. Once I enter his house he will point me to the sofa to take a seat. As I am about to decide on that, he will say “or you sit on that couch which will be more comfortable”. Once seating gets settled, the next question would be whether I would like to a have a cup of tea.  The moment I try to open my mouth, he would assure me that coffee is also available.

“Why are you bothering him so much, he will ask what he wants no?” my aunt reacted once. Uncle got upset, really angry and went to his room.  He didn’t speak for 5 minutes. He was back with a smile “Do you need some clothes to change ? lungi or shorts ? aunt can provide you all that”. This goes on and on. It will not be in the order as I mentioned above. It can be at random, one overlapped with other and with many repetitions.

He doesn’t mind if you say no to his continuous offers. If you are not aware of that, then you are asking for trouble. You would have drank coffee black/white 5 times, tea for 5 times, enjoyed the breeze of  ceiling fans of different make, would have changed clothes many times, would have sat through almost all upholstery in his house, would have slept at odd hours of the day. All this in a few hours time.

I am pretty sure that at least 2 of my FB friends will be lol (“laughing out loud” not “ lots of love”) while reading the above as they can relate this well. Lol -  I learnt from my daughter a few days back that I can use known, popular acronyms  while chatting with her in whatsApp. I thought I will extend it here too.  I knew only a few conventional ones like RSVP, RIP, RAM/ROM, CPU etc. Now I am quickly adding new ones like lol, jk, cu, idk, myt, sux  etc to my vocabulary. Don’t I need to be relevant in this internet savvy, fb hooked, chatty world?  Is it not advantageous to use as many acronyms as possible? Using those I will be able to write a blog of this size in half page or even in less space, don’t know what the reader will do though!

I had a colleague who likes helping others. If he helps a person someway or other, he gets a high as if he had gulped down one or two pegs. [ “STATUTORY WARNING: Consumption of alcohol is injurious to health”].  Once we were going out for lunch. The restaurant was a couple of miles away; I thought I will walk down to have some exercise. My colleague approached me, “even I like walking but I can take you in my car”. I said no, we shall walk down. As we were downstairs and about to exit office he asks “do you want me to hold your laptop, its rather heavy for you?". I had to give a nasty reply to shut him off till we reach the restaurant. He puts forward these kinds of unsolicited offers to others with occasional success in getting opportunity to serve. I should mention here that these are selfless, honest offers with no returns expected, but highly irritating.

We had an HR manager who used to teach us soft skills. He had a good sense of humor, yes a good to have quality. We always loved to sit in his class. His every fifth sentence would be a joke. His idea was good, adding some humor helps while teaching a boring subject.  But the humor content used to be so high, if somebody asked us what were a few things we remember from the class; it would be Santa/Banta, Dilbert, Little Johny etc. nothing on the soft skill side. 

One can have a good quality but too much of goodness may make self or others uncomfortable or can be counter productive. Should I write more !