Pays to Stay in Shape

Had always been convinced that taxes are fat and particularly when March arrives. But this news was appalling even for my standards. In Britain, they are proposing a ‘fat tax’!! Insurance firms are contemplating about levying a tax for obese people.

If your BMI is greater than 30, then you are dead. Well not literally, though that’s what the insurance firms seem to believe. Your premium would be up as high as 400 percent. Could have some funny impact! If you are going to be paying such a high premium, then you end up a pauper and thus have nothing to eat and automatically cure your obesity. Then what’s going to happen? Will the insurance guys reduce the premium or refund the amount? Why would they? They will be a bunch of happy guys because of the premise of you dying soon because you are obese and hence I have to pay is gone. So, they would not care much! Now look what all problems obesity causes!!

As usual I went on an exaggerated imagination trip and was wondering whether the premium will be proportional to the BMI of a person. And you may simply ask a person what is his premium and decide whether he or she is fat. For many of the worried people about whether they are over weight, they can now have a second opinion from the insurance firms. They ask you to pay normal, and then you know you aren’t fat. Invariably it appears being fat is a costly affair. You first maybe hog all the creamy and high calorie stuff from the junk food places, so you spend money. Then you go to a gym to reduce your fat or invest on exercise equipments. And later the premium also goes up. Hazardous to guess really! Some of the people who I know would probably have to take personal loans if they insist of having an insurance cover. I am looking at a possible positive point here. Are they going to be charging less if you are underweight? A thin person would then be lucky.

I was told by an insurance sales person that the last & lingering statement they leave with a reluctant buyer is ‘I am sure you do care about your family’. Now if this true, I guess the obese citizens are going to be one lot of irresponsible people!

Skills

Just how many of the skills that we acquire we manage to forget? Your guess would be that we never do, we just are a bit raw initially and then in a matter of time we get back to the fluency that we were known for. In fact it is an oft-used point that, though we don’t cycle or swim for ages, if someone throws us in the water, we will draw our reserves and manage to float.

My knee seems to have a different idea. Two weeks I had been in braces that didn’t allow the knee to bend. And when it was finally removed, my knee forgot how to bend. Mind you, I had been using it for ages and two weeks I don’t, it simply ditches me. I had been dragging my foot literally to take myself from point A to point B. And when the physio demanded that I walk as I would normally do, I forgot how I was walking. He had to demonstrate how to walk. This upsets me terribly. The physio had his explanation about the small bag of lubricant which stops performing its job once it is not used and now the joints are rickety rackety. But I am not convinced. You don’t forget how to walk.

And in your life you simply want to forget many things and you can’t, but the brain takes the liberty of forgetting essentials. This is not a welcome state. We have got to do something about this anarchy. What if it suddenly chooses to forget other essentials? Let’s say that you don’t sleep for a while and the brain decides to transfer that essential to the recycle bin, then you are in deep shit. On the contrary, you would wish that you don’t want to remember that you are married, but the brain chooses otherwise and constantly reminds you. This is complete indiscipline.

I can’t hazard the eventuality of such kind of anarchy. Maybe everything would turn out to be reverse. You forget to walk, but not to drive. You forget to eat, but not to feel hunger and so on. The physio says that it is raw and he can manage to teach walking. Maybe he will give me a license too certifying me walkable.

In a way, I feel it would be fun to see how far it can go in terms of indiscipline. I can use that excuse to put the worst of my behavior up and later claim I wasn’t in control of what I was doing. The devil in the mind is working and let me prepare a list before I forget or the brain takes over.

Soccer Balls & Knee Balls

At 42, you feel that you are at the peak of your life. You have seen all, you now have power, you have youth and your audacity can be backed up with actions and you aren’t scared of anything. You feel that you have enormous self control and the pain is never shown in your eyes unless it is extremely destabilizing. And then you break your knee. You are somebody else from that moment. You are the one who moved on your feet like a gazelle and in a TV commercial when John Abraham does a body maneuver dodging a bunch of kids off a soccer ball, your legs pain and you tell that guy, just be a little bit careful buddy.

But till it gets destabilizing you don’t accept it fully too. You would fly to all parts of the country, take 150km drives on a single day for customer calls but just look like an sorry a**hole when it is time to climb the stairs of the aircraft with your luggage. Guys who look like modeling for Rice Barn oil breeze past you, throwing a contemptuous glare at you that means ‘you youngsters’. That’s the time you decide you will fix it once and for all and agree to be on the operating table. Now that is a positive move, so you know that whatever incapacitation is, it’s just for a brief period and proceed. Being a creature of habit, you make a list of what all you want to carry to the hospital. It was almost similar to a work trip sans the formal attire and the jackets. You pack your ipod; you carry enough books for the entire stay which includes the time at the table, you carry all kinds of chargers and your bag appears as if that is being admitted for labor.

You start off warm and flirt with the sisters ( sounds like incest, but then they are younger than your daughters which makes it even more incestuous ) and make life miserable for all of them till they utter the word preparation. All of them are trained to say that in a somber voice befitting a British funeral parlor. Surprising they wear white and not black when they say that. They bring a bagful of disposable syringes ( a bag that is bigger than your pregnant one ) and place it behind you, but you know that they are intruders of your body and they outnumber the cells in your body and you start wondering how they will manage to use them all, maybe use some of them on the attendants. That’s the easiest part actually. They just make one big hole and dump everything through that.

But the prep is not about that. A guy turns up ( he is supposed to be brother, ok ! ) and tells that he wants to shave the entire hair of your body. Normally I am given to exaggeration, but this one is not, he left the hair in my head, but suggested that I remove my Frenchie ( ok even that too ! ). You are appalled, a sparse growth at your chin is surely not going to hamper a knee surgery for sure, but he is just an implementer, he just told that he was under orders from the sister to do so. Maybe the sister didn’t like the frenchie or the surgeon has a bad superstition about this. You are categorical that you would want them to reconsider that decision and if it is upheld you would rather use your Mach3 and shave rather than using the skin hair remover that he brought with him. You need to give into this, that guy does a thorough job of shaving, barring a small nick in the shin. Your earlier blood clot test suggested that your blood doesn’t bother to clot soon and you are wondering this new development would set back the surgery date by a day. And then he springs a surprise, he asks you whether you are A1 blood group, you are amazed and reply in affirmative and he casually tells that all A1’s clot late. Fine you think, you should have asked this question before nicking, my friend. But, you turn around and look at your leg and have images of Levers calling you for modeling for their skin removing products. And it sucks to see yourself plain and bald in areas you loved with hair always. The ordeal does not end there, the sister turns up and runs her hand on your leg ( unfortunately only on the leg ) and finds out that there are strands are hair that can’t be permitted. You beg for mercy and promise to be even smoother in the morning when the surgery is about to start, after all hair grows was your logic.

You start thinking whether we make more doctors than what you need because as of then, your life history is just known to a million doctors as they troop in and out for the interview. And at last you manage to shut yourself to get some sleep. You don’t even know whether you slept before a duty doctor wakes you up at around 4.30 am, wanting you to sign a document that bequeaths your life to them. This I know is thoughtful. I have read in novels that the elite special commandos always attack at this time of the day, because they apparently believe that the resistances are lowest then. You don’t give up so easily, you read them thoroughly and later regret why you did it. Because just after you read, you start thinking about your mother, childhood friends and everyone else who is not around you. And decide that the only thing you will regret is the unfinished Dave Barry book. Then you don’t sleep again. Not that you don’t want to, but remember I talked about those million doctors, they have million counterparts for the morning shift starting from that undertaker.

The anesthetist troops in and he gets annoyed because you are brushing your teeth as if you are going out on a date with him. He asks all kinds of questions which your mother would not have known about her mother and you make a honest attempt to reply each one of them. Actually he could have tried this interview for a longer time, because he was anyway making me drowsy and that’s what his mission was. He agrees to add a valium to your drugs, because by then you are anxious and all that bravado vaporizes. And the ritual starts again, the brother comes again and checks the new development in the hirsute areas and tosses a gown to you that could be the skimpiest you will ever get to wear and yet look grotesque.

Then one single shot and you know nothing. You had prepared carefully for the recovery and promised to ask the clichéd question of ‘where am I?’ and your friend who is in an officer at that hospital leaks out a question which the anesthetist would ask showing two fingers expecting your reply. The before surgery you wanted to reply that with a single finger ( you know which one ) , but nothing you remember. You are warned that in the post operative recovery period there is a chance of you blurting out state secrets and leave the nation in peril apart from the names of all your girlfriends leaving yourself in peril. But neither was a problem, as you don’t know any state secrets and you yourself have forgotten the names of your girlfriends. You wake up like a heavily made up hero in the movies and tell that you want to go home. There you go!! Training always helps. You are then touted as the best person who has ever undergone Anterior Cruciate Ligament reconstruction. Then next you talk about the Builder meet and tease a friend. They all know that you are back. But that was a teaser. It takes enough and more time for you talk anything coherently and remember whether your daughters visited you. You are in a state of haze.

Everyone is happy barring me, because the next day the sheets are all bloody and with the leg like what you have, you start wondering what gender you are and what they cut off from you. Someone you manage to take a peep and convince yourself it is only the hair that is missing and go back to bliss. But the doctors and the paramedical have their KRA, the weightage and priority is as follows:

1) Patient should not sleep for more than 10 minutes ( while you understand the ulterior motive about checking whether you are still breathing, you think there were better methods.
2) Patient should not even feign happiness, because they then unleash a physiotherapist on you whose target is measured in the quantity of tears you shed.
3) Sisters should have prior experience in archaeology, as they would be needed to dig deeper into you for placing an IV cannula and excavate for that. ( once it comes out through your mouth and you start wondering that they could orally feed you medicines if this was the case ) and their results are in depth and size of your thrombosis.
4) The brothers on the quantity of urine you pass ( every time I topped beyond 700 ml there was a cry of joy from the brother because it was a new hospital record)

Was a fine bunch of guys who met their KRA always! But then you are used to this ritual pretty much yourself that you wake up every 10 minutes and press the buzzer and report that you are alive or hoard your piss to collect 700 ml plus and quickly cry when the physio walks in.

And after they get used to you as a victim, they quickly bored and wean off from you and that’s when you start missing them. You start realizing what all they did for you and their absence, and lack of smiles around you hits you hard and start waiting out for their arrival. You almost become a baby again and act like a puppy and wag your tail when you see one of the known faces ( not withstanding the fact that they show that you knee looks like a hardware shop and you have a lifetime supply of staples when they are removed and handed over )

And when the D day arrives ( in this case the Discharge Day ) you don’t want to go because you were so very confident about these guys and you are suddenly afraid to be alone without them.

You still wake up at 5 am, but miss the undertaker, you do your physiotherapy much easier, but cry when you realize that the therapist is not around who made a hard job pure fun and showing you birds in the marshland ), your symptoms of thrombosis fades but you smile at their attempt to find a vein in you and you know that these guys out there put you back on your feet. And you start looking forward for the review day and you start preparing another list which reads out the mementos you want to give them.

And you tell John Abraham in the TV, ‘just a couple of months buddy’, just that!!!

Capitalism vs. Communism

Bobby Fischer’s death immediately reminded me of only one thing. Ayn Rand’s ‘An Open letter to Boris Spassky’!

I can’t claim myself to be a great fan of Ayn Rand. Don’t know why, but I have found the books extremely dry. But years ago, I never had the courage to claim so, because it was fashionable to say that I read Ayn Rand and sprinkle your conversations with a few quotes from here or there. That was the time, where you felt that you need to conform to peer groups’ thoughts as a mandate. No such pressure now. In fact, being a non-conformist is more fashion now.

Having said all that, there is still one piece by her which I regard as the finest and in a way opened up my eyes towards communism. I grew up with a steady dose of communism with my brother being a party member and New Century Book house sold high quality print books at a very low cost. It was Ya Perelman’s ‘Mathematics can be fun’ that created a huge interest for Maths in me. And the Soviets were anyway claiming that all inventions of the West were done by them earlier, albeit secretly. But for a 14 year old, it was plain heroism. So, I was an ardent communist myself. If communism involved printing good books and selling at cheap cost, even today I will vote for the Communists. Anyway, one thing that changed my outlook on Soviet Russia and Communism was this Ayn Rand’s article. A chess match between a prodigal, eccentric Free world citizen and a highly organized genius of the Communist world was billed as a battle between Capitalism and Communism. Fischer won of course!

But the best that happened because of the series is this letter. Here I reprint it!



An Open Letter to Boris Spassky

Dear Comrade Spassky:

I have been watching with great interest your world chess championship match with Bobby Fischer. I am not a chess enthusiast or even a player, and know only the rudiments of the game. I am a novelist-philosopher by profession.

But I watched some of your games, reproduced play by play on television, and found them to be a fascinating demonstration of the enormous complexity of thought and planning required of a chess player--a demonstration of how many considerations he has to bear in mind, how many factors to integrate, how many contingencies to be prepared for, how far ahead to see and plan. It was obvious that you and your opponent had to have an unusual intellectual capacity.

Then I was struck by the realization that the game itself and the players' exercise of mental virtuosity are made possible by the metaphysical absolutism of the reality with which they deal. The game is ruled by the Law of Identity and its corollary, the Law of Causality. Each piece is what it is: a queen is a queen, a bishop is a bishop--and the actions each can perform are determined by it's nature: a queen can move any distance in any open line, straight or diagonal, a bishop cannot; a rook can move from one side of the board to the other, a pawn cannot; etc. Their identities and the rules of their movements are immutable--and this enables the player's mind to devise a complex, long-range strategy, so that the game depends on nothing but the power of his (and his opponent's) ingenuity.

This led me to some questions that I should like to ask you.

1.. Would you be able to play if, at a crucial moment--when, after hours of brain-wrenching effort, you had succeeded in cornering your opponent--an unknown, arbitrary power suddenly changed the rules of the game in his favor, allowing, say, his bishops to move like queens? You would not be able to continue? Yet out in the living world, this is the law of your country--and this is the condition in which your countrymen are expected, not to play, but to live.

2.. Would you be able to play if the rules of chess were updated to conform to a dialectic reality, in which opposites merge--so that, at a crucial moment, your queen turned suddenly from White to Black, becoming the queen of your opponent; and then turned Gray, belonging to both of you? You would not be able to continue? Yet in the living world, this is the view of reality your countrymen are taught to accept, to absorb, and to live by.

3.. Would you be able to play if you had to play by teamwork--i.e., if you were forbidden to think or act alone and had to play not with a group of advisers, but with a team that determined your every move by vote? Since, as champion, you would be the best mind among them, how much time and effort would you have to spend persuading the team that your strategy is the best? Would you be likely to succeed? And what would you do if some pragmatist, range-of-the-moment mentalities voted to grab an opponent's knight at the price of a checkmate to you three moves later? You would not be able to continue? Yet in the living world, this is the theoretical ideal of your country, and this is the method by which it proposes to deal (someday) with scientific research, industrial production, and every other kind of activity
required for man's survival.

4.. Would you be able to play if the cumbersome mechanism of teamwork were streamlined, and your moves were dictated simply by a man standing behind you, with a gun pressed to your back--a man who would not explain or argue, his gun being his only argument and sole qualification? You would not be able to start, let alone continue, playing? Yet in the living world, this is the practical policy under which men live--and die--in your country.

5.. Would you be able to play--or to enjoy the professional understanding, interest, and acclaim of an international Chess Federation--if the rules of the game were splintered, and you played by "proletarian" rules while your opponent played by "bourgeois" rules? Would you say that such "polyrulism" is more preposterous than polylogism? Yet in the living world, your country professes to seek global harmony and understanding, while proclaiming that she follows "proletarian" logic and that others follow "bourgeois" logic, or "Aryan" logic, or "third-world" logic, etc.

6.. Would you be able to play if the rules of the game remained as they are at present, with one exception: that the pawns were declared to be the most valuable and non-expendable pieces (since they may symbolize the masses) which had to be protected at the price of sacrificing the more efficacious pieces (the individuals)? You might claim a draw on the answer to this one--since it is not only your country, but the whole living world that accept this sort of rule in morality.

7.. Would you care to play, if the rules of the game remained unchanged, but the distribution of rewards were altered in accordance with egalitarian principles: if the prizes, the honors, the fame were given not to the winner, but to the loser--if wining were regarded as a symptom of selfishness, and the winner were penalized for the crime of possessing a superior intelligence, the penalty consisting in suspension for a year, in order to give others a chance? Would you and your opponent try playing not to win, but to lose? What would this do to your mind?

You do not have to answer me, Comrade. You are not free to speak or even to think of such questions--and I know the answers. No, you would not be able to play under any of the conditions listed above. It is to escape this category of phenomena that you fled into the world of chess.

Oh yes, Comrade, chess is an escape--an escape from reality. It is an "out," a kind of "make-work" for a man of higher than average intelligence who was afraid to live, but could not leave his mind unemployed and devoted it to a placebo--thus surrendering to others the living world he had rejected as too hard to understand.

Please do not take this to mean that I object to games as such: games are an important part of man's life, they provide a necessary rest, and chess may do so for men who live under the constant pressure of purposeful work. Besides, some games--such as sports contests, for instance--offer us an opportunity to see certain human skills developed to a level of perfection.

But what would you think of a world champion runner who, in real life, moved about in a wheelchair? Or of a champion high jumper who crawled about on all fours? You, the chess professionals, are taken as exponents of the most precious of human skills: intellectual power--yet that power deserts you beyond the confines of the sixty-four squares of a chessboard, leaving you confused, anxious, and helplessly unfocused. Because, you see, the chessboard is not a training ground, but a substitute for reality.

A gifted, precocious youth often finds himself bewildered by the world: it is people that he cannot understand, it is their inexplicable, contradictory, messy behavior that frightens him. The enemy he rightly senses, but does not choose to fight, is human irrationality. He withdraws, gives up, and runs, looking for some sanctuary where his mind would be appreciated--and he falls into the booby trap of chess.

You, the chess professionals, live in a special world--a safe, protected, orderly world, in which all the great, fundamental principles of existence are so firmly established and obeyed that you do not even have to be aware of them. (They are the principles involved in my seven questions.) You do not know that these principles are the preconditions of your game--and you do not have to recognize them when you encounter them, or their breach, in reality. In your world, you do not have to be concerned with them: all you have to do is think.

The process of thinking is man's basic means of survival. The pleasure of performing this process successfully--of experiencing the efficacy of one's own mind--is the most profound pleasure possible to men, and it is their deepest need, on any level of intelligence, great or small. So one can understand what attracts you to chess: you believe that you have found a world in which all irrelevant obstacles have been eliminated, and nothing matters, but the pure, triumphant exercise of your mind's powers. But have you, Comrade?

Unlike algebra, chess does not represent the abstraction--the basic pattern--of mental effort; it represents the opposite: it focuses mental effort on a set of concretes, and demands such complex calculations that a mind has no room for anything else. By creating an illusion of action and struggle, chess reduces the professional player's mind to an uncritical, unvaluing passivity toward life. Chess removes the motor of intellectual effort--the question "What for?"--and leaves a somewhat frightening phenomenon: intellectual effort devoid of purpose.

If--for any number of reasons, psychological or existential--a man comes to believe that the living world is closed to him, that he has nothing to seek or to achieve, that no action is possible, then chess becomes his antidote, the means of drugging his own rebellious mind that refuses fully to believe it and to stand still. This, Comrade, is the reason why chess has always been so popular in your country, before and since it's present regime--and why there have not been many American masters. You see, in this country, men are still free to act.

Because the rulers of your country have proclaimed this championship match to be an ideological issue, a contest between Russia and America, I am rooting for Bobby to win--and so are all of my friends. The reason why this match has aroused an unprecedented interest in our country is the longstanding frustration and indignation of the American people at your country's policy of attacks, rovocations, and hooligan insolence--and at our own government's overtolerant, overcourteous patience. There is a widespread desire in our country to see Soviet Russia beaten in any way, shape or form, and--since we are all sick and tired of the global clashes among the faceless, anonymous masses of collective--the almost medieval drama of two individual knights fighting the battle of good against evil, appeals to us symbolically. (But this, of course, is only a symbol; you are not necessarily the voluntary defender of evil--for all we know, you might be as much its victim as the rest of the world.)

Bobby Fischer's behavior, however, mars the symbolism--but it is a clear example of the clash between a chess expert's mind, and reality. This confident, disciplined, and obviously brilliant player falls to pieces when he has to deal with the real world. He throws tantrums like a child, breaks agreements, makes arbitrary demands, and indulges in the kind of whim worship one touch of which in the playing of chess would disqualify him for a high-school tournament. Thus he brings to the real world the very evil that made him escape it: irrationality. A man who is afraid to sign a letter, who fears any firm commitment, who seeks the guidance of the arbitrary edicts of a mystic sect in order to learn how to live his life--is not a great, confident mind, but a tragically helpless victim, torn by acute anxiety and, perhaps, by a sense of treason to what might have been a great potential.

But, you may wish to say, the principles of reason are not applicable beyond the limit of a chessboard, they are merely a human invention, they are impotent against the chaos outside, they have no chance in the real world. If this were true, none of us would have survived nor even been born, because the human species would have perished long ago. If, under irrational rules, like the ones I listed above, men could not even play a game, how could they live? It is not reason, but irrationality that is a human invention--or, rather, a default.

Nature (reality) is just as absolutist as chess, and her rules (laws) are just as immutable (more so)--but her rules and their applications are much, much more complex, and have to be discovered by man. And just as a man may memorize the rules of chess, but has to use his own mind in order to apply them, i.e., in order to play well--so each man has to use his own mind in order to apply the rules of nature, i.e., in order to live successfully. A long time ago, the grandmaster of all grandmasters gave us the basic principles of the method by which one discovers the rules of nature and life. His name was Aristotle.

Would you have wanted to escape into chess, if you lived in a society based on Aristotelian principles? It would be a country where the rules were objective, firm and clear, where you could use the power of your mind to its fullest extent, on any scale you wished, where you would gain rewards for your achievements, and men who chose to be irrational would not have the power to stop you nor to harm anyone but themselves. Such a social system could not be devised, you say? But it was devised, and it came close to full existence--only, the mentalities whose level was playing jacks or craps, the men with the guns and their witch doctors, did not want mankind to know it. It was called Capitalism.

But on this issue, Comrade, you may claim a draw: your country does not know the meaning of that word--and, today, most people in our country do not know it either.


Sincerely,

Ayn Rand
Sep. 11, 1972

601 not out...

I rarely feel compelled to write about an individual and eulogize about him or her. I comment on things people do, the movies I see, the books I read and the various funny episodes that punctuate my life. But I can’t help but write about this great individual.

People get important in your eyes because of what they achieve or what they stand for. K.Balachander once told that there is no one who is a self made man, because you get made by watching and learning virtues from others, maybe just not in an acknowledged manner. So, unwittingly we pick heroes and role models on whom we shape ourselves. And as I said, they should have achieved something by skill or character. But this is one gentleman whom you will hero worship because of how he did it. As it would be in the rarest of rare case, achieve something by both skill and character.

Anil Kumble is a typical Indian hero of yesteryear vintage. You don’t get many like him who is so good in what he does but only what he does, does the talking and not him. The clichéd phrase of ‘unsung hero’ is just made for him. A tall & gangly bespectacled lad who had the mindset of a paceman, but practiced spin as an art is rare. In fact we used to joke that he picks his wicket on slower ones. He is such a quiet gentleman that his achievements are not noticed so very easily. And suddenly when you wake up that he has got 600 wickets and by the time he finishes he may well be 200 wickets above the nearest Indian is no mean achievement.

But even this one would have gone unnoticed but for the great dignity he displayed as captain in the times of worst crisis. He stood up to his team mate; he uttered the immortal words as if he had a tryst with glory that said everything in a simple sentence, proved that he is a great tactician off the field by withdrawing the complaint against the opponent, pushing the ball into the court of an aggressive bunch of mediocre human beings and on top of it, when no one gave a chance to his team in a fiery wicket, chose an offensive strategy to bat first.

Strangely in this country we need poster boys who can give good sound bytes ( barring Sachin ). And the others we go at length to belittle. No one talks about Anil in the same breath as the famous spin quartet while we are willing to compare Sachin with Sunny. And everyone talked about the doctored pitches in which he was successful. Absolutely crazy, no one talks about the English & Aussie pacemen taking wickets in pitches that are suitable to their craft. But when it came to Anil, it was always a helpful track.

But Anil battles gamely as always. Read somewhere that 601 should have been an Avogadro’s number that appears only in the text books, when he started his career. Now it is against his name. But then there is nothing strange about it.

For Anil, it has always been text books. Be it in his craft or words or how he conducts himself.

As your wicket keepers always shout, Shabhash Anil Bhai Shabhash…

Buffalo Soldier

Very recently saw the movie ‘Malcolm X’. I would say it is one of the brilliant portrayals ever done by an actor. Denzel was way too good as Malcolm X. The movie has been adapted from the book ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’ which was co-authored by Alex Haley.

Alex Haley later went on to become popular with his book ‘Roots’, which on hindsight I am wondering why I didn’t include in my recurrent reads. Maybe because I haven’t read it a lot of times! A couple of time maximum I guess. But it rates as one of the best I have ever read.

Starting in 1700’s with the forced abduction of a black man from Africa, it spanned 2 centuries and ended up with the author, whose roots he claimed to have traced back to. The 1700 slave ‘Kunta Kinte’ was his ancestor.

Malcolm X, Amistad and this book are fantastic productions that highlight the misery of black people. To think that the most democratic nation, most developed nation was built on slave labor is extremely unpalatable. Today America stands for freedom and wherever they see oppression, they are the first to poke their nose into. But in 19th century, a black was considered as only 3/5th of a person and women were given the right to vote only in 1920.

America has been a breeding ground for double standards all through its existence. While the Americans were busy fighting Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan was very much active with it’s anti Semitic propaganda. While it was advising South Africa, America’s own citizens were segregated economically, physically and socially. There are many African Americans who still believe that they get a raw deal. We are now taking about a possibility of a woman or a colored President there, while a much smaller country like Sri Lanka was headed by a woman much earlier. Their treatment of coloreds had been worse than many of the autocratic regimes which they oppose. A Rodney King can still happen only there. I read a book which statistically proved that there are more blacks who lost their lives fighting for America. Be it a war or a sport!

As Bob Marley sang,

Stolen from Africa, brought to America,
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival.

It is such a pity that many of them would not know where they came from. In a way it is cultural rapes to let generations of people lose their identity. Like they say, behind every success there are a lot of corpses.

Sidey Sydney

If you put together all the words that had been used in the last 4 days about the Sydney test, I am certain that it will be more than what was used in Mahabharata. Aussie bashing, Expert opinion on cricket, Testosterone display and effigy burning was the national pastime. Sure there was enough and more grievance and rightly so, but in a typical Indian hyped way. All of us behaved as if our womenfolk were raped!

What happened exactly? We lost a test allegedly because of bad umpiring and one of our guys got banned for a racial slur. Didn’t reduce the GDP one bit, isn’t it? But for the fact that all of us were glued to TV sets and the Internet and thereby contributed lesser to the economy! But, we would have anyway found some way to do that, like the delaying tactics of Ishant Sharma bringing two right hand gloves. We are ingenious on that count.

It is a known fact that Ponting & co is no better than schoolboys and to expect grace and sportsmanship from then is like expecting a murderer to preach peace. These guys are not brought up that way. I am told that, every block in Australia has a huge ground but you don’t hazard a guess on their prose literacy skills. Less than half of the Aussies have the skills that are required to meet the complex demands of everyday life and work. And numerical literacy is even worse. This is ABS statistics. They are more interested in sports in their life and that shows why they are such a champion side, but worst ambassadors to their country. It had been even worse in the earlier tours.

Krish Srikkanth was at his marauding best in the same Sydney test in the 1985-86 series. Gavaskar & Jimmy scored centuries too and the Aussies followed on and escaped because of rain and bad umpiring while they were at 119 for 6 in the last days needing 86 more runs to save the test. Those were the days I was still in radio commentary and if my memory serves me right, Ray Bright who was holding the other end was given not out when he was caught in slips. I maybe wrong too, but there are plenty of such incidents. Greg Chappell was out lbw only 9 times at Australia playing 102 innings. He was never given out.

But those days we always sulked in the hotel rooms and came back with the tail between our legs. Now situation is different. We have found the financial power. The same jingoistic fans who burn effigies and the ones I complain about are the ones who flock to the matches and bring about the financial power. So now they demand their pound of flesh. And in India, there are no small measures, like no one can be little pregnant. We either keep quiet completely or make the whole world notice us. Now we have hyped it so much that any decision other than what we wanted will be a volte face for the board.

Sanity says that we should have handled this after getting rid of the emotions, but then it is easier said than done. While I distance myself and talk about our boorish behavior which is taken Australian proportions now, the fact remains that I have testosterone too.

I am happy that we can make people dance to our tunes :))

Steps

In a man’s life, he does take a lot of steps. Some knowingly and some unknowingly! This is not about those steps. But again, it is about the unknowing steps. I mean the literal one. My phone is supposed to be having some features on fitness. It does some intelligent job like measuring the steps I take everyday and the calories I burn. Of course it has the same features for running, but then who runs in life. The running that you do for all kind of unnecessary things in a day to run your life is good enough.

Now this phone says I take around 2010 steps on an average in a day, but that is carrying the phone ( but at home they anyway complain that I never stay away from it ). I am wondering where I expend these steps. This is an average of 1.5 km per day. I don’t recall walking anywhere. My home to car, car to office and back! In between a few steps here & there when I get called! And there are very few people who can call me to their place. Actually it is just one person, my boss! Rest, I pick the phone and call them to my desk. This AC issue in my room sure adds a few steps for my visit to the loo, but beyond that I am unable to think. However hard I try, I am unable to account these many steps. So it is now pretty clear. The steps that I take are both useless and unnecessary.

Gives me a perspective that maybe this is true for the figurative steps also! Maybe all of us keep doing something or other, but very few of them matter anything at all. If I delve deep into finding out the actual steps, maybe I will understand that I would be using more steps because I started doing something that is not needed. In life too, maybe all the actions are in effect only reactions, for an initial action by either you or someone else. Guess the key is in finding the meaning of that first action or in this case, the first step.

To quote Bhagwan Saibaba, “Man is lost and is wandering in a jungle where real values have no meaning. Real values can have meaning to man only when he steps on to the spiritual path, a path where negative emotions have no use”

Yeah, the first step should be a positive step.

WoW

This is something that has taken the fancy of Aruna. Well WoW stands for Women on Wanderlust. These guys, rather gals arrange trips for women alone as a group and pander to the wanderlust wishes of women. She has been goading Krithi to join her and she has already vicariously traveled as far as Egypt now.

Actually it is SOS time for me in reality. On many fronts! I am tempted to find out whether there is a inner meaning for wanderlust. Is it just about visiting places far from the confines of family trappings? Is it wandering away from men in reality? Or wandering towards men in reality, albeit different men! Everyone is bit by wanderlust. Whether it is men or women, that dream is there.

I always wanted to go somewhere on my own. I was wondering what do I go away from or go towards. Maybe the first thing that hits me as a great bonus is that I don’t need to do anything that I normally do. I don’t have to plan, I don’t have to keep timings and I don’t have to look behind my shoulders to do the certain things that I normally do. My beers won’t be counted. And I can practice my belief of using beer as a thirst quencher. Then I need not be worried about what others want to do, whether the kids are hungry etc. Maybe the same stuff applies for women also. Just plainly freak out!

But let’s come back to why I call it as SOS time for me. On two fronts! SOS stands for Sisters on Shopping-lust. That’s what it will be. In fact I have a deep suspicion that it is an alien conspiracy that makes all new launches let be known to these guys exclusively. Even before a shop is conceived to be launched they will come to know of it. It is a different story that the conception itself happens only because the investor is aware of the existence of these two.

If there is 30 minutes that goes by without anything to worry, Aruna will get stressed up. And the next minute she will call Krithi. Asking her to come for a de-stressing trip! And she is always more than ready. My suspicion there is, she would be waiting in her parked car at my gate and the moment the call lands she would be there and before you say Jack Robinson, they both will be out. There is not a single shop whose inventory they don’t know. In fact they get too busy around 31st March, because for stock-taking the shop keepers need to know about the inventory situation and they can’t call anyone else but these two people.

I don’t know what they shop really. But they will keep shopping and sometimes the shopkeepers will beg them to leave because he has a home to go. This could be for themselves or for each other. Alternatively even this can happen. While they are walking in the streets, if they hear the word shopping, they will be stopping. They would probably accompany them. It could be a stranger also; they will just introduce themselves, give them all kinds of dope about where you get what and take them along. The fact that they would end up buying more while they were supposed to play guide is my own sorry story. Let us not dwell into that.

So much so that I have suggested that they can make this as a career. Like what Kamal Haasan says, if your passion is going to be your job too, then there can never be a better life. In the process they can earn some money. I would not mind if it is in kind also. Like getting the n’th pair of sandals as that day’s fee!

Alternatively, they can do one thing as a pair. Krithi can convert her own wardrobe as a shop. Because it has more inventory than the biggest textile showroom! Aruna can then take someone along there and shop. And then having made money out of the sale, they can then go out on a shopping binge themselves. Inventory gets replenished. Money is not wasted. The shopping lust is fulfilled. So many things in a single stroke!

These guys also have some mysterious planning. My daughter Teju is now almost as big as a woman. So when Krithi buys something, to kill her guilt, she shops in the pretext of buying it for Teju. But then she knows she can flick it from her whenever she wants because she can get into the clothes with ease.

Have you ever heard of any guy paying EMI favoring textile shops? Well, I am that guy. This is apart from what they can buy out of their own earnings. There is a strong rumor floating, that one of Krithi’s friends collapsed out of heart attack once because she saw her in a dress that was once seen worn by her 3 years back. It was so unlike her to repeat, so I can understand the shock of her friend. Apparently the grapevine is that Krithi is contemplating to do some construction work at her home, which is to extend the balcony into some kind of a cantilever, because she needs more storage space for her dress. As far as Aruna is concerned there is no such problem. Not because the quantity is less, it is just that she won’t be too worried on where she keeps them.

A third member of the clan is now being indoctrinated that is Teju. What it would be if not for SOS time, when you start wearing slips to office instead of vests!!!

She smells good ? Stay Away !!

It is contrary to what you would do normally, isn’t it? If you come across someone smelling very good, nice perfume and all, you tend to get attracted or sometimes even turned on. Hold on for a minute. It may not be a great idea.

A recent research has concluded that women who are depressed tend to wear a lot of perfume because they lose their sense of smell. So if there is someone who is bathed in perfume, you better stay away, lest you become the shrink for their depression.

I am just wondering about all these kind of research and always keep thinking whether the converse of the theorem is also true. If this is true, then do women who stink are vibrant in their mind? Well this is just for argument’s sake. I don’t apply real logic to such thoughts. It is just that I was wondering whether all of us would be rewind times and behave like our ancestors, going around smelling women.

Fun apart, we surely are affected by smell. In fact the same research has concluded that the people who are depressed react well to aromatherapy. A friendly smell seems to help them. Whether we want to smell good or not is one side, but surely one should not smell like a pig.

One of the hazards of working in large organizations is getting bombarded by all kinds of smell on a daily basis. I used to wonder whether certain people collect body odor as a hobby. So much so the entire cubicle will stink. If they happen to be the boss, then it is a double whammy. You get assaulted by both his verbal diarrhoea and the smell that is created by that kind of infection. There are other people who have this problem of bad breath. There was this guy at my office, who is a pain if he opens his mouth. Both because of his potent weapon of mass destruction called bad breath and his muttering in Hindi without attempting to open his mouth.

With so much education that is attempted by the commercials, I wonder why people still come to work as they walk out of a pig sty. Maybe we should quarantine such people and unleash them on the sales team when they don’t do the target, with a stern warning that they would have to come for another such meeting if they don’t buck up. Would work like magic then.

OK, if my title sounds sexist and women want to be up in arms against me, here is my suggestion to them. If its men, just stay away ( irrespective of how they smell )

Brain Again

There is something strange about the organ brain. As it is about the other organs, everyone has one. Or atleast seem to have one! But we have never complained about anyone that their breathing is crazy, walking is stupid and so on. Somehow these organs, the essential ones at that like heart, lungs, kidney etc function equally for all people. Brain alone is a standout. I can understand that if people are born differently, like some one at birth has only half a kg of brain as against 1.5kg everyone else has. But it is not so, the brain weight has always been in correct proportions in everybody.

The problem arises when they start using it. I have a fancy theory that it depends on where the brain is situated in the body. Though physically it is always under the skull, the way it functions is dependent on where it’s heart lies ( brain’s heart I meant, some stupid kind of a metaphorical statement ).

For some brain is housed in their jockey shorts. They can think nothing else but getting into the pants of others. For some it is housed inside some safe vault in the body that we don’t know about, because they never use the brain and keep it super safe. For some the brain understands only numbers, all they think is money and anything is associated with money and money only. Even their own self respect! Some people seem to have developed it well in the formative years and exhaust it when they pass out of great institutions. They walk into huge corporations and offer value added bullshit.

Some have it removable. They promptly remove it when they start from home, act stupid all the while when they are out and return to re-fix it. For some it floats in a sea of tears, they cry first and think next. For some there is an inherent fear of exhausting it, thus they never use it once and save it for a rainy day. For some it suffers from a delusion of multiplier effect. Even little thing they do, they believe it is a great thing. Some senior management people have it pretty easy. They train the brain to just say yes. One day in a meeting if I mimic the Boss’s voice and say ‘I don’t think you have brains’, they will promptly say yes.

For me I guess I have it clouded by anger. First I get angry and then start thinking. And then get angry again after building some logic. Or it is more spent on tolerating other brainless creatures. And it is already running out of space with storage of junk information that an immediate disk cleanup is warranted.

I am going to have it surgically removed and just survive with Google only!!!

Balance Sheet

I remember making a balance sheet last year on how the year went by. Mostly it was good stuff and a couple of things I would have let go by, if I had a choice. A quick check on 2007, presents a similar story. I don’t want to get into the nerves of people reading this by making them think that I get all the good things in the world and how am I so lucky. The fact is that I am a bit lucky. But claiming this too very often when I have always had my share my minor discomforts and irritations all the time is strange even to me. And people around me claim that my discomforts are because of my blowing up my own trumpet. Some voodoo stuff it could be. Not that I am believer, but why advertise all the goods seems to be a logical question!

Guess it is my penchant to show off! I tom tom every good thing that happens to me! As if I am the only lucky guy in the world. Think it is an attitude of enjoying a secret pride of my success and telling the world ‘look what I have got’. But then, isn’t everyone like that? Wanting to showcase their goodies to the world? I guess so! Few people are there who would keep bitching and moaning even if they get the best things in life. I am not like that. When as a youngster, successes are rare & few and you don’t belong to the cream, not a very studious person, never seen first rank in lifetime, whatever little opportunity you get it, you tend to show off. That’s precisely what I do.

One of my ex bosses cured me of this illness when I always kept comparing who got what. That was supposed to be at work. In life that has never bothered me. Maybe that’s the reason I think too much whatever little happens to me and blow it in such a proportion that the world thinks, everything is hunky dory with me. But the point is that many things are too ordinary and I am good advertiser. All this enlightment happens only when you realize that a family member who is 10 years younger than you has achieved more in many areas and you don’t even know about it.

OK, I have said it all, but the fact remains that 2007 happened to be one of the best years of my life.

• I found an amazing person who turned out be my best friend
  
• I quit a job of 8 years at the right time.
  
• Got into a very interesting job that paid well.
  
• I made some good investments.
  
• Folks at home had a good year too I suppose.
  
• Did all the stuff I always do like buying books, reading, writing, listening music, watching films, partying, shopping, holidaying but everything in exaggerated proportions.

On the flip side,

• As usual warranted myself a hospital visit by tearing a couple of ligaments.
  
• Right time or not, quit a job of 8 years.
  
• Worried more about the folks at work than ever.

Doesn’t change my opinion one bit! It is always more good than bad. The time that goes by seems to be better every time, but it also gives a perspective that if that is true, what comes out will be even better, because you know that the next year’s balance sheet will look similar.

Genetically programmed to win

This is what Jack Reacher says! Well Reacher is the hero of all Lee Child novels. There are some characters that remain etched in your mind. Reacher, Dirty Harry, Harry Bosch of Michael Connelly! These are guys, to use a phrase to explain them best, are characters out of a story book. Well they are in fact.

The creation of such characters I wonder would be a fantasy of the author himself who he wants to be. All these guys have a common trait. They never lose. They are loners. The girls fall for them. They are anti establishment. They know everything under the sun. They are passionate about the job. They hate the bad guys.

My interest in them is about what I said in the title. Their belief! That they will never lose. Reacher believes that he is genetically programmed to win. He says that killing is his job, albeit the bad guys. As much as a lawyer would not hesitate to see a brief and defend the client, he would kill. No compunctions whatsoever!

I wonder how many of us are like this! Honestly speaking all of us are. Reminds me of an interesting perspective I read somewhere. That all of us born winners, in other words, all of us genetically programmed to win! It starts from our genesis. There are a million sperms that get discharged during intercourse. But there is only one that succeeds in entering the egg and fertilizing it. And that is the one that made you. It had to be stronger, faster and it should have had a desire to be the first, the one that will win. So you start with an advantage. We get made out of winning genes.

But then there are only a few who actually win in the real world. I haven’t bothered much to research or list out the traits of winners. I call myself a winner. I know what I do to be one. I have no guilt, no shame and no fear. ( no fear in getting something done, the normal or the abnormal fears of escalators are very much there ). More often than not I have found that, you just have to ask what you want. Many of them give! When you ask! Problem starts only when you start thinking of what could be the answer. Well, there is always a 50% chance of success, isn’t it? They either say yes or say no. Many say yes. Starting from a normal bargain in a shop or with a vendor! Utmost they say no, they don’t get insulted or hit you for having asked. For many, it is the fear of facing the answer which possibly could be no. But then what is the problem if they no. I read in a small Udipi hotel at Mumbai which said "We do all things possible, the impossible we take a bit more time”. Obviously the hotel owner was someone who landed at Mumbai for north Karnataka with just one rupee in hand. And made it big! Why wouldn’t he?

Sometimes by asking you may even get more than what you bargain for. Because the guy at the other end could be someone who fears to say no! And he is afraid that you may get insulted at the offer he makes. So he does his best. There are plenty of positive thinking books. I never read any of them. I have found no use for them. I know what I am, then why bother someone to tell me what I am. But many find them useful. I actually pity them. You are made to win.

Just go out and win!

Armpits in Advertisements

Sometimes I wonder what these ad guys are up to!!! I saw plenty of hoardings advertising Deccan Chronicle. It showed a lithesome girl with hands lifted up, displaying her armpits. And the caption was ‘Don’t Compromise’. Of course the first two letters of the caption ‘DC’ stood for Deccan Chronicle and there were highlighted. Now tell me what this ad means? What has it got to the newspaper? And what are they asking us not to compromise? Compromising on losing opportunities to see armpits?! Where is the connection? We want to use the female body form for promoting anything and everything, starting from water pumps to pan masala.

While this is a vulgar strategy for getting eyeballs at the advertisements, the endorsement ads are even funnier. Once Sunil Gavaskar endorsed Niki Tasha kitchen range! What has he got to do with that? He was cooking centuries and not curries! But they paid him to endorse the brand which he never uses in his lifetime.

Now there is a new fad. Celebrity appearances! In a recent function at Mumbai where a deal was signed between two businesses, SRK graced the occasion and he was paid one crore for that! Beats my imagination! Why on earth, he would be there and why he has to be paid for that?

For every good commercial there are 10 silly ones. Some of them socially irresponsible too! Like the Pepsi where they used a tea boy when child labor is a crime in the country. Mercifully someone filed a PIL and they withdrew the ad. There was a time you went to saloons for seeing some pictures with cleavage, a confirmed male preserve and domain. But now, they are everywhere, even promoting the toor dhal that you use everyday.

If things don’t change much in the ensuing days, I also should start considering about displaying some deep valleys in my blog for better readership!!!

Bonobos

The only certain way I pass time when I holed up in a hotel room on tours is by watching Discovery Channel. Quite an apt name, because I tend to discover something new every time.

George Santayana told ‘A country without a memory is a country of madmen’. What would he say about the whole species that evolved to its present form when it doesn’t carry the most important memories?

I saw this program about the Bonobos, the closest cousin we have in the primate family. Apparently we lost precious time learning about the chimpanzees to know more about ourselves, when in reality the Bonobos are even closer to us as a species. They are a matriarchal society and the group is lead by the females. The kids hang around the mom’s and the males every now and then display some empty bravado and get chased promptly. The females of the species are the only one in the animal kingdom that is sexually active throughout the year. Maybe that explains their being a matriarchal society. The females know that they hold the key, all through their lives. And the babies who lose their mom and orphaned are ostracized from the community, though the other kids continue to play with the orphan. But not without complications! Any issue between the kids, the mother invariably punishes the orphan kid. And the poor orphan kid writhes in pain with no one to take care and the kids that played with it on the first place and became the reason for its punishment are the only ones that bother. They try to pacify the orphan and bring it back to normal mood. It was so very touching to see that. And at the same time, the adults do care about smaller animals of other species when they get hurt. They take them under their care and ensure that they set them alright.

These are the memories I mentioned that we forget. In the past, we have done such mistakes of interfering in the quarrels of children and in the process get difference of opinions amongst adults, while the children forget that in a minute and start playing. We should have held on to that memory and made ourselves as an evolved species in the literal sense. The community living, the power of women in the community, the care that we showed to other living things, every little thing like this, we have forgotten! Now today because of the civil war in the jungles of Africa, we are even making our closest cousins extinct for their meat.

And this we call as evolution!!!

Let it be

This one happens to be my most favorite song of all time. Yes I am devoted to the Beatles, but this one is a peach. For many reasons, one is Paul’s smoky voice but the clincher of a reason is the lyrics and the ruckus they created when they made the song. John once said that they were more popular than the Jesus Christ. They were confirmed agnosts and when Paul wrote about Mother Mary whispering words of wisdom in his times of trouble, it was considered as a path breaking deviation in their thought process. But Paul later told the world that he wrote about his mother who was named Mary who once appeared in his dream to give a piece of advice. This is the trivia about the song. But I dig what it stands for.

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Yeah there will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be
Ah let it be, yeah let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And when the night is cloudy
There is still a light that shines on me
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music,
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Yeah let it be, let it be
Let it be, yeah let it be
Oh there will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, yeah let it be
Oh there will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Ah let it be, yeah let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Though on a cursory look it appears as a disturbed man’s hopeful prayer, I think there is more to it. Many of the issues in our life, if left undisturbed and we can tell ourselves ‘Let it be’ get sorted by themselves is what I believe. But belief is one thing and practice is another thing. Certain things which doesn’t matter at all when time passes tend to occupy most part of our thoughts today. We are too worried about ‘what if’s?’ everyday. We tend to forget that the light still shines on us even when the night is cloudy. And there is someone who is always standing right in front of us. It is just a question of whether we are willing to hear the words of wisdom.

That is if we believe that we need wisdom.

Jaws

Fate catches up. Sometimes too soon in your life! Like when you are even just thirteen. I had been warning my daughter to brush her teeth properly and she finds exactly 10 seconds in a weekday for that chore and a princely 20 seconds on a Sunday. And you know what happens. Each tooth was proceeding in a different direction presenting a unique problem to dentistry, as if it has a mind on its own.

But she is so cute that the slipped order lent its own charm to her. And she was happy. It was I who suggested that we fix the issue. Didn’t know that if I was a dentist I would have been happier! Because you get to break people’s teeth and also get paid for that task more than what you are when you are a Business Head. We were given a choice of metal and ceramic braces, the ceramic one only being some 30K. It was another story where mom and daughter fought about which one should be chosen. My daughter looks pretty cute and there are already enough calls to home from her classmates, who incidentally happen to be boys. As it is I was spending a fortune on a cause which I would regret later and I wasn’t ready to double the cost and thus double the agony. Now & later! So we settled for a metal one. I even secretly wished that it will be a deterrent for the so called ‘classmates who happen to be boys’.

It started off with an expense even before I paid for the doctor. Since she was going to wear braces and she can’t eat hard stuff, she demanded that we go out that night for dinner. What she forgot was that she had separators fixed between her teeth to enable the fixture of braces. That was immensely painful and she could not eat. Having come to a restaurant and not being able was even more painful. So she went to the restroom and removed the separators!!! Thus it started. The next day was the actual fixing procedure and because of this adventure that got postponed.

The dentist saw the opportunity in this when she complained that the separators were too painful. So he decided to make more space in an alternate way. He removed a couple of teeth and I paid for it. It at last happened the next day. Now she is with metal all over her teeth and I have named her as Jaws. Her issue would be sorted out and she will turn out even more attractive.

But mine remains. She stays as cute as ever. And the calls don’t seem to stop!!!

Sidebar

My sidebar has been acting up. The damn thing is sitting at the bottom of my page. This I didn’t know for long. One day it suddenly disappeared and I attributed that to the Houdini stuff that is the norm in the household. I felt that I am being very harsh on my wife because we lost a fish and here I have a lost a sidebar. Fairness means that I should be blaming myself too for being a member of the ‘losing tribe’.

Sometimes it will appear to me there is really something suspicious about the mystery of such things getting lost. Fish & Sidebar kinda stuff! So, went to the extent of even thinking of taking some voodoo help. Anyway I was going to Kerala and with some luck if the voodoo guy is also not lost, I can figure out the shrouded mystery of our household. Sheer lack of time in the trip prevented that from happening. Don’t ask what why we were so short of time. Suddenly one guy started about the incompatibility he has with his wife and small things of life and there was a unanimous chorus.

When I resigned to my fate, I opened up the blog at home in Firefox and there it was, in all it’s splendor. That’s when I got my breath back. After all I am a responsible guy, I can’t be losing things like what folks at home do.

Now I am trying to fix that problem and there is too much of help available, just that none of them work for my blog. Change templates, remove pictures, shorten titles, check on the HTML codes, you name it, I have done it. Still the issue is not sorted out.

You know what; Firefox is a better browser than IE. Let us use that only.

It wasn't one more Birthday

I don’t know what I did to deserve such luck and honor!! Maybe it has got something to do with my previous birth when I hoarded tons and tons of blessings that I receive such a never ending supply of love and care. For I don’t see myself as a person who is very sensitive to others or as a great friend to people! I am such a lazy guy that I don’t take any effort to keep the flame of friendship burning forever and given the excess of phone calls I receive in a day, I hardly call my friends or even speak with them for 5 minutes straight when they call me. I don’t remember their special days in life; I don’t wish them and more often than not my actions had been selfish than the other way round. The circle is always limited to family and a few special friends. I don’t call my siblings on their birthdays or for that matter any other day. At office, I pretty much keep to myself and I can’t remember occasions where I have gone out of the way to do something for others. I have strong views on people’s actions and I don’t hesitate to say them in so many words.

I still don’t know why after all this folks show so much love. There had been a flurry of calls since last night and countless gifts for my birthday. Some of them being my classmates in college that I attended 22 years back. Guys from the previous office called me one by one and are planning a get-together on Saturday night.

The buzz has been around at home for a week now and my daughters stayed awake till 2 in the morning to welcome my birthday and keep that extended. My wife has been running around for a fortnight checking out on gifts that she could give me. And one special friend started working on those 3 months back. The kids in the office have decorated my room and have been running around for a cake and surprise me. I see genuine smile in people’s eyes when they walk across to wish me and it has been just a few months since I came into this office.

My eldest sister called me late in the evening and just before the birthday was about to end, gifted me a huge wooden elephant to reminisce my childhood days when she bought me a small one from her Kerala tour, which I ended up as a partner in my sleep for years to come. I kept that with me for around 20 years and it died one day. To gift me something similar when I am turning 42, just reconfirms the place I have in her mind. The kid brother always! I may grow up to the outside world. Never for the folks at home and I shamelessly retain that position and get extremely proud about it.

My daughter buys me a Boxing bag partly to serve as a vent to my anger but more for not ending up as a bag herself in my playful moods. My wife sends me a signal by gifting a Bluetooth device maybe suggesting that we should speak more than what we do now. And I had been wearing the device since it was given and atleast more than a couple of times demanded them to call me so that I will use it immediately. And she thoughtfully shops for bathmats and paper holders because I spend a lot of time reading in the bathroom in which I expect a dry floor. The younger one hand paints a greeting with the National Flag along with the cakes, candles and balloons.

My best friend goes overboard and remembers every single occasion that we had been shopping together and me casually saying that I like something. She prints my blogs as a book with carefully chosen photographs and spending days to get the layout right. She buys me a cycle because I once told that I could never own a cycle all my life because folks won’t buy me and later I grew up to buy only the Chevrolets of the world. She makes a collage of the family photos and buys a self tuning guitar ( maybe she wants me play it atleast once in tune ). Gets me a hand made glass idol of my favorite Goddess and just not to disappoint me folks also get me the n’th sneaker, (n+1)’th shirt.

To celebrate a birthday like this seems to be a throwback to childhood days. Even that I don’t remember to be of such great pomp and love. There should be something that is endearing in me to all these folks. If you ask me, I may not be a great friend to me if I am what I am. And I don’t know what makes me so special to them.

And I don’t think I can ever repay such love. Whatever I may try would not match these gifts. It makes the job of a lazy guy even tougher. But what other motivation could be there for someone to attempt?

Picasso said “It takes a long time to grow young” and Lincoln said “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it is the life in your years” and mine has been filled with life so far and I am marching towards growing young. And with such special people around, I sometimes get pretty greedy about wanting a hundred more birthdays!!

One More Birthday

Another birthday is getting over tomorrow. I don’t remember the earlier ones of my life or its significance. However, these days it is becoming a big affair. As if I am a star or a minister. There are too many people who call without fail to wish and I get flooded with presents. These are the people whom you know in the real sense; add to this, droves of people in the office who walk in to wish. Maybe because I sit inside a cabin and that means even not-so-known people peep in to wish.

Year on year I get to know more people, some of them get really close and a few become an integral part of my life. This means the list only keeps growing. The ones who are in the ‘known’ list are genuinely warm and the integral parts starts partying for this a week before.

I sometimes pity the people who would want to buy gifts for me. There was a time in life there were desires and needs. By God’s grace every single thing of them had been met and some of them superfluously met. Like 12 watches, 14 sneakers, 50 T Shirts, 85 Shirts, 6 perfumes and so on! I have more music collected with me that could last my lifetime or beyond, if I choose to listen to all of them in one go. Don’t ask about books; whoever gifts it would probably be secretly cursed in the same breath as I would thank them. Because the house is running out of space and with the current real estate trends, it is becoming a costly desire just because of storage space. The ones that warm me invariably are the hand painted greetings of my daughters, because that involves hell a lot of effort and every centimeter is filled with love. Being a man is a nuisance to the gifters that much. Choice is limited for a man. Come to think of it the only thing that would really make me feel wow is based on the effort and time the gifter has to put in choosing mine. Even Google doesn’t help you much in this area. So you can imagine, if God fails who can win. So when my father in law called me to find out what gift I wanted for this Bday, I told him that I have got all I want and one thing I would love to have more is ‘peace of mind’ and he replied that my wife would be giving a piece of her mind if that is so! But there are special friends who make every single thing count even in midst of these mounting challenges! Because of their genuine desire to see happiness in my eyes!

One of my friends had it as a habit in his family that they will get themselves dewormed on the Birthday. Just for plain convenience of remembering this annual ritual. I too have picked 2 habits lately. One is that I donate some money without fail. And store those thank you letters for the organizations like treasure. Second habit is taking stock of what I have done in this life. Though I think of it every year, I don’t stop with the preceding year only as an update. I go through the whole works again. Some stuff of the past gives me perspective, some give me smiles, some give me tears and some give me desire to do it again and some give me plain irritation about naivety and adamancy. I vow myself that I would not repeat any of the stupid things of the past and these resolutions are shorter lived than the New Year ones.

As I grow wiser every year I also realize that I am getting softer in my brain. Small things please me more than the big ones. As if I am a geriatric, thing that happened yesterday gets forgotten but I remember dates of small events that occurred some 30 years back. My audacity gets reduced year on year and I convince myself that it is a sign of wisdom. I get more agitated at the choice of dresses by my daughter, the very same ones I have not minded my wife wearing 15 years back. I keep telling myself that I am not turning into a prude but just being more careful about what is to be done. At the same breath, do stuff for which I never had the courage as a youngster. Sentences with the same count of words are spoken for longer time now because it is punctuated is err..’s.

Couple of years back when I turned forty I was almost getting into a depression because of that, as if that marks a watershed in life. Now when I know that I will again feel the same way only when I turn eighty, I can afford a laugh. I was wondering whether I was going through andropause. Nothing of that kind happened. And I stopped thinking about age unless when it is convenient to me or every year around the birthday to complete the ritual of stock taking.

Actually I guess I only grow younger. There is a reverse aging process and now I am worried where that will stop. At 18 like Bryan Adams sang or even lesser? That is a cause for worry. After all I am becoming old; I need something to worry about!!