Shame on you Houdini

If Harry Houdini was alive today, he should be living in penury. I am certain about it. How can he make money by acts of disappearing & extrication now? No, nothing has changed as far as the bewilderment that is associated with such acts even today. The reason is pretty simple.

Our household would be more popular than him and he would have lost his market to us. Because, we are even superior to him!! We simply make inanimate things disappear, which he cannot do. And we are also masters in extrication. Let me elaborate.

In a normal household, what do you think can be lost? A few handy things that you keep can be misplaced? Yes, you are right. Only such stuff gets lost in the maze of a household. Then would you not call bigger things disappearing as a Houdini Act then? That’s what we are masters at.

Since yesterday morning I am looking for the remotes of my TV & Set top Box. There is not a trace of them anywhere. All possible and impossible places have been searched and they are still absconding. I was tempted to release an advertisement in the newspaper this morning to get them back. Then I consoled myself that if both of them are missing together, it should be a case of consensual eloping. After all they lived together always and can’t function without each other. So they might have decided to run off somewhere just to escape my younger daughter.

OK, if that was a mystery, what do you call the disappearance of shirts, handkerchiefs, one sock of a pair, all the combs, sewing needle, Vicks Vaporub, weekly magazines, footwear’s, watches and everything that you need urgently!!

And we guys don’t help the cause either. If I could be the culprit of misplacing the TV remote somewhere, my wife is capable of misplacing the TV itself. And my daughters are out of the world. You cannot find one book of theirs when they have to study and if at all you do, you need to enlist the services of some detectives to ascertain the cause of death of those books.

And similarly when it is time for studying, my elder one can extricate herself beating Houdini, only to be toppled my by younger one at the time of hitting the bed or eating. They will simply evaporate. As if they are made of liquid nitrogen.

There should be something really mysterious with the house. I named it as the Spooky House this morning. Because there has never been an occasion when something has been found when it is required. Simply impossible! One day it happened that I found the comb which I was looking for and then it was my turn to disappear. To the ICU!! Where else you go if you have a heart attack.

I am now convinced that my folks are not to be blamed. Actually this place could be the perfect story material for Manoj Night Shyamalan. The events are definitely paranormal. No I am not being over dramatic here at all.

In fact I say this with a very heavy heart. The stuff which I humorously kept complaining about getting lost are inanimate things all said and done. You never really have an attachment built with them. You are not going to sit and cry if a comb is lost reminiscing about the great days you had with the comb ( you can read this as the great days when I had hair in my head also ). It is true with all the objects. All of them are replaceable. You can buy them again.

But this morning I found out that one of my fishes, a very beautiful one at that, is missing. This has got to be paranormal stuff! How else you will describe a fish missing from the aquarium? :(

No males please

There are certain things that are distinctly Indian as a behavior. I don’t intend to list them here. But just talk about only one such trait!

Blame it on the Bhagavad-Gita maybe. But how many people in this country have read the great book? So it should be something that is ingrained in our DNA by our forefathers who would have read the marvel. But there is a problem in reading it and understanding yourself and passed on wisdom. When it superficial it becomes a question of your own interpretation.

The Gita says that you keep doing your duty and don’t think about the outcome. We all get a hand me down of this wisdom from the mentors and the management guru’s too. Just focus on the efforts, results will automatically come. This is the catch phrase. If someone does not say that, then he will be ostracized from the Management community. So, all of us do that.

But the flip side is that, everyone thinks that the converse of the theorem is also true. End justifying the means!! Let me be honest, I am one like that. I would employ all honest & fair means (according to me) to get what I want. The corollary of the theorem becomes even more interesting.

Like when they make a movie script and the subject is an anti-hero one who resorts to illegal ways, they invariably establish somewhere that it is all for a good cause. He is bad, but then not that bad, he has his sense of fairness is what everyone would want to say. Or, there will be a movie where the hero has an affair because he is incompatible with his wife, but in the climax it is the lover who will come between him and the bullet, not the wife. Or let us say that the heroine gets raped by a drunkard, it is imperative that the drunk is her mother’s brother or her own cousin. In effect, it is like saying ‘yeah she got raped, but then in all fairness he could have been her husband if we go by relationship’. That is giving some credence to the guy that he can afford to rape. This will go a long way for the heroine to shed the taboo of a rape victim. And then, come what may the heroines will not remove their mangalsutra. Even if it is tied by a dog!!

There is an inherent fear to be iconoclastic in this nation. Things should be accepted by the larger society is what everyone’s desire. Let us say that there is something which is deviant from normal way of life. The thought will be ‘Fine, let us find out how much we can limit the damage’. This is so very pseudo. Bunch of hypocrites we have preaching for us.

Look at this news item. ‘Desi Porn start strikes it rich, to marry’. I said wow to myself even before I clicked the link. Here comes the crunch. Apparently she is an admitted bisexual, but has done only one male- female film so far, rest had all been lesbian stuff. And now the guy whom she is marrying is that male co-star. The only guy she has had sex with (in film of course)!!! Completely bamboozling!! She is a porn start all right, but she has been a one-man woman. Hahaha!!

I don’t know what is running in the lady’s mind. But one thing that bothers me is that, having chosen porn as profession, why this charade. ‘I am willing to do something on camera, but no males please’ is an odd condition, when she is clear about sexual preferences. She anyway is a bi. It takes a lot of courage to chose a profession like this and having done that, why these Indian traits?! People in the US, do porn movies as part time because they want to get through college. For you know, if you are working in the US, your boss could have been in porn films earlier.

Maybe I am being too cynical about everything in life. That’s what it should be. But I am unable to accept many things that go around me. Wish people could be brave, really really brave.

A Funeral where you smell your own flowers

A friend called me a while back saying that he wanted to share a quip with me. I am still trying to fathom why he chose me to say that. Jokes apart he did it in right earnest because he knew I would love this.

The one-liner goes like this ‘Wedding is a funeral where you smell your own flowers’. Awesome quote! Now you know why I pulled his leg about the choice. I am increasingly getting annoyed at these wedding functions and lavish ones at that.

I try to figure out who exactly is celebrating? Is it the parents who put up the pomp? If so what are they trying to achieve? The fact that their wards are getting wedded?! The fact they have plenty of money? The display of joy and relief having reduced one member of the family! (I was only mentioning about the count, don’t read anything between the lines and take reduction as a word with face value and get into some philosophical analysis, though that is what I want you to do). Or is it to showcase whom they have found for their children!

Any which reason it is, it beats my imagination. If you have plenty of money, bloody well use it somewhere else where it is valued more. I have 5 elder sisters who got married and we should have spent a fortune on that ( ok, one was a smart person, didn’t allow us that option ). And for 10 full years lived in front of a wedding hall seeing marriages happening every third day! I now visualize that as lambs being taken to slaughter. Invariably there will be one nasty comment or other from the audience, a mean old aunt or the groom’s entourage in all marriages. Millions of bucks in food which is not appreciated and a bunch of beggars standing outside for the leftovers! Sickening feeling it was. And I am certain not a single soul including the relatives care a damn about how they live afterwards and whether they are compatible.

If it is a question of having fulfilled a responsibility of getting a child married off, how can that be true and if it is so, are you sure that you fulfilled it to the best of your ability. The mean family sniffing around like hyenas for largesse is where your daughter goes to. And does your responsibility end with that? Obviously not! You are always worried about how the folks live together but stay at a distance because you are not supposed to be interfering.

And the couple themselves! What a big waste it is! You don’t know how the well made up gent or lady next to you would turn up to. The very same quality that has endeared the other to you is the one you would get to hate the most. Oh she is so brilliant you would say when you want to get married, but can you stand living with a genius if she is screwed up in head? The attitude that looked so very hip & cool will become detached and self-centered. The sharp focus you loved will become single-mindedness. The happy-go-lucky nature will become irresponsible in a future date. The pride in which you showcased your partner saying ‘look what I have got’ will turn out to be exhibitionist tendencies of the other. The interest in which you shared about going out for dinners will become a allegation of laziness to cook. The neatness that you displayed will become an object of ridicule & irritation and you start assuming that you are suffering from an obsessive compulsive disorder.

Any damn thing you take, it becomes a question of taking a vicious about turn in the future. And to that you add yourselves responsibilities like mortgages, kids, routines and you complain about them. Actually I would say, we should not have any weddings at all and if we need to, it should be a hush-hush affair that no one in the world will know and one day you will wake up and wish that you aren’t wedded after all and that is true.

OK, this is my own blog and I cannot put a disclaimer saying ‘These are the views of the author and the publisher does not necessarily share them’. How I wish I could!!!

The Boss from 'Dilbert'

The Boss – A character from Dilbert by Scott Adams

He's every employee's worst nightmare. He wasn't born mean and unscrupulous, he worked hard at it. And succeeded. As for stupidity, well, some things are inborn. His top priorities are the bottom line and looking good in front of his subordinates and superiors (not necessarily in that order). Of absolutely no concern to him is the professional or personal well-being of his employees. The Boss is technologically challenged but he stays current on all the latest business trends, even though he rarely understands them.

This is my blog and I can say whatever I want. This has been my refrain always. And in a way I also felt that it provided a vent to my feelings which otherwise get bottled up. Sometimes issues are dealt humorously as I put it down in the blog, sometimes it pours out as agony. But for me, as a feeling it has got dealt with and that’s what is important.

Despite all this I had been holding myself back talking about a few characters in my ex-employ. Honestly I didn’t know why I had not dealt with my anger about them so far. I could have done that even while I was still working for them. Used euphemistic expressions which only the intelligent guys there understand. But then all those intelligent guys were anyway my friends and they knew what I felt and I also knew that they shared the agony. Bottles after bottles were drowned only on marveling at the stupidity of some creatures that somehow managed to soar up in the hierarchy.

I badly wanted to expose these guys even while I was there. Had a couple of skirmishes and that was about it! And while I was agonizing about letting them go scot-free, I was counseled by one of the rare occurrences like Haley’s comet. The rare occurrence was a man with brains and lots of them. And he told me simply ‘If you wrestle with a pig in the mud, both of you get muddy and the pig loves it’. That sealed my uncertainty of whether to fight or not. Not that I minded getting muddy, his analogy to the pig about the other guy was so very right and I didn’t see myself fighting with a pig, though I may smartly avoiding getting muddy and still win. In Mahabharata, there is a term used for fights amongst equals ( If I am right , it is called Thuvantha Yuddha, my Sanskrit is anyway pretty rusty ). As per agreed norms, a cavalry man fights only the enemy cavalry and so on. Here there was no equal for me to fight, so I just let it go. I was also tempted to have the last laugh and I drafted my resignation mail which was encrypted. The first letter of each word if strung together would have said ‘F*** You …….’ . I was advised against that also by a well-wisher and I just faded away from the scene. After nine years of passion, moved without a whimper and an exit interview!

OK, after two months why am I agitated now? That’s simply because, there had not been a single day in these 2 months where atleast 3 old colleagues had called me to pour their heart out. I am now a declared ‘Agony Uncle’. Stories after stories about the current & ensuing madness! The irony was that even while we were all working together, we managed to make time for ourselves where we discussed stuff that was not about business and company. But now, nothing else they seem to discuss with me. So, the clowns have succeeded in robbing my pleasure time off, which they could not manage while I was working with them.

And, while I was thinking that there is a saturation level for stupidity, these guys prove me wrong everyday by being extremely innovative doing more stupid stuff after stuff. And the worse thing being, not a single guy in the system believes a bit about what he is doing. Seemingly intelligent guys had no recourse but to follow the clown at the top and in the process become laughing stock themselves. The passion in which the second rung leaders try to convince the team to scale to greater heights with no apparent conviction in their voice and body language seems to be the latest fad. A couplet in Thirukkural says that you need to laugh when you face adversity. Very difficult art to practice, but then if there is something to thank these jokers, it is their attempt to induce humor in an otherwise bleak proceedings by being the clowns they are.

Apparently, a guy who is something one day is a different thing another day which he himself is not sure whether he is capable of. I am eagerly awaiting the day when that coffee boy grows into a National Manager. Atleast I like that guy and he is more intelligent than the current crop. They have faced tremendous success in killing the business. And they actually celebrate that. More than half the team has quit and a few of them had the courage to tell the HR guys what they think is messy there. But then HR knows that and they don’t want to or cannot act, hence very little interest for them to know further.

In midst of all this, the top clown and his crony clowns are happy. They feel on the top of the world doing things irrelevant to the business and too far moved away from reality. And they don’t want advice and there aren’t many who can give at this stage. It pains to see your efforts being killed like this, but then it doesn’t matter to me but for the pains I see in my erstwhile colleagues’ faces. People willing to jump out of the ship even if it means that the shore is so far off! Absolutely sickening and creates a terrible rage in me. How that is there could not be one single top guy who cannot bell the cat? How could there be so much apathy from the top management about a business? How could there be so much of gullibility amongst the intelligentsia of the company?

And the persons responsible themselves, how is that there could be so much superciliousness? I have heard of Megalomaniacs from history, never seen one in flesh & blood though. Does he really believe that what he is doing is right? Is he so blind about reality? Or is it just a brave front hoping for a miracle everyday? And what about the sycophants?! Do they really believe the cause or just that they make their living by being ’yea sir’s? There are more questions in mind than answers.

My moral dilemma occurs when I know I could fight and I don’t do. But then life is full of such compromises. Some you choose the right way, some the indifferent way. As long as I am convinced that it is not the wrong way, I guess I will keep finding platforms to vent my spleen.

Divine Retribution

I have some wretched luck with the air conditioners. In fact I don’t think air conditioner is the right name for this machine. It just doesn’t condition any damn thing.

I had this old AC that was without a remote. And it was definitely not an intelligent machine. Either it made me freeze or sweat. So I used to set it at some medium chillness and wait for it to freeze me and then get up, switch it off and sleep. And after a couple of hours will wake up again and repeat the rigmarole.

And I always believed that my daughters have better luck with their AC. Their room is so very pleasant to enter. I was trying to figure out the reason. Initially I thought it could be because of the fact, there were a million living things in that room and a temperature of 18 degrees was shared by the 120 lizards, 1504 ants, a few cockroaches, million bacteria ( a few lacs of them hitherto unknown to the microbiologists ) and these two kids. And then I made a very honest assessment. That way my bedroom should have all those living things barring a few which my daughters create in the lab conditions of their room.

I zeroed in at the brand being the reason and changed the machine. And the new one seems to suffer from dyscalculia. It is zilch in numerical skills. Can’t understand a basic thing like 16 means 16 and it comes after 15 and before 17. And it is completely disobedient as a pair. Never does anything the remote says. If the remote says 16, it will display 25. And blow some hot air. They just don’t go along well at all as a pair. Maybe they are already divorced in a court of law and by some quirk of fate landed in the same box again and chose my bedroom as a battlefield.

It has some 10000 buttons and none of them are useful in any sense because even the machine does not know what it is supposed to do if some button is pressed. All I get to see is some colorful display but the lack of cooperation is pretty standard. It does what it wants to do anyway.

After some solid disagreement, me and the machine reach some kind of a truce and try to settle down. But that’s when the chinks in your marriage surface. My wife has this huge disorder of misplacing things. Now that is something common you may say. I am talking about misplacing things like TV and stuff. She would carry the television and put in some place and the entire household will get into a hunt ( ok, I needed to use the TV as example to really describe my plight, she isn’t that bad, she only misplaces everything that is movable )

So, if she hasn’t slept before me, then there is every possibility that the remote could be misplaced and I will suffer when the truce breaks. In the event of that not happening, I place the remote on my side and sleep. That creates a whole new issue. She turns back and sleeps on the remote and that changes the temperature setting. Now, this is where the irony starts. The hitherto disobedient & dyscalculic AC puts up its best behavior and promptly changes the temperature. The other day I was cursing the bad cooling and chose to walk out to the living room and sleep. And it was amazingly pleasant. Actually the bedroom temperature was higher than the normal room temperature.

Now I am trying to do a research on this instruction manual, but more than that I simply hope that it is just a resettling issue for my AC and it will start behaving in a while on its own.

But I am convinced about one thing. I and AC are not made for each other. In the office, they have made me sit right under the vent and sometimes I feel I am sitting in the rain, it literally pours. And as if I am suffering from incontinence, I go to the loo every 30 minutes. And I don’t know what else folks at office would be thinking of me. Same luck with the car also. It freezes you sometimes that the fingers go rigid and you can’t turn the steering wheel properly. Else, by the time it cools I reach home. Or sometimes it completely fogs my spectacles when I get out and I walk around like a blind man to reach wherever I want to.

I need to do some detective work about my ancestors. I am certain that atleast one was a AC scrap dealer in his vocation. He would have smashed all the AC’s without mercy. What else but divine retribution would cause this kind of luck? :(

The Second Sex

I think it is this book named ‘Eppodhum Penn’ by Sujatha. It is about this woman who is extremely smart and occupying a prestigious post as a lecturer in a college being married to a cheat and even after realization continue to stay with him, but of course maiming him at the end.

I have always wondered about the male-female relationship in a marriage context. But before that, there is a disclaimer. I don’t claim myself to be a woman’s lib guy or a perfect husband material. Maybe the other end of the spectrum would be a correct definition of me ( ok, that was modesty, in reality I am neither there nor here ).

I come from a family that is infested with women. 5 sisters, mother, aunt & an old grandma living with us while I was young! So I have seen extremes from female subservience to daring acts by my sisters. Atleast no typecast was seen. My father whom I hero worship, on hindsight seems to be a very poor husband. My mom was always worried about his anger. And worse is that we never knew what will cause that anger. My mom on the other side was not someone who will lie down and take whatever is dished out. She had her way when she wanted to. And my aunt & that old grandma were widows whose life was practically over in a very tender age and that fact was easily accepted by them without a single murmur. My sisters are a mixed lot. While they stoutly defend their husbands, I am certain that they pretty much have a say in stuff that happens around in the household. Sometimes more say. Each of them believe in themselves and do not hesitate to put their foot down on causes they believe strongly about.

But, the curse lies in the societal outlook about man-woman relationship. Sujatha acknowledged that his reference book for the story was ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone de Beauvoir. She calls the females as the prey of the species. There is whole lot of stuff she has written about master-slave relationship. Pretty intriguing!

I have always believed that a master is a master only till the slave accepts to be a slave and not otherwise. So it is strange for me in a modern society we still have relationship types where one is subjugated and it is accepted willingly just claiming that to be a norm.I guess it is more a lack of will to fight, that all elements that makes a norm is brought in.There is some comfort level somewhere in whatever stage it is, and while there overt cribs about the state, there is no attempt to get out of the state. And abuse ( I am talking verbal & mental here ) being accepted is one of the most shameful things in a marriage. Acceptance because of love is even more shameful.

If one goes by Hegel’s definition of the master-slave relationship, the modern women are very much masters & men in their own right because they open the future when they seek out and not wait for the male to do so. And divergence is becoming lesser & lesser.

But despite changed times and beliefs, somehow men get their way even in an educated world like today’s. Maybe because women want to belief whatever they wanted to believe than what is real. But honestly I feel all of us do that. I am unable to put a finger. Just looks very strange to me. I tend to believe that in certain areas women just don’t want to confront. And again I am not sure whether, this generalization is right. But this is more prevalent in women than men. And that is not very right.

Men refuse to be educated and even worse is women refusing to educate them. There lies the irony.

What’d you do before the end of the world?

Funny to think of it! I always used to ponder about such crazy stuff. Not about what I would do, but more about what others will! Never stopped to think about myself!

In a way it is gratifying that there are folks who think like I do and conduct surveys on that. The results are somewhat obvious. More than half of the people would want to spend it with their loved ones. And in a material world, it is surprising that 13% of the people have a hedonistic streak reaching out for champagne. Some want to eat and 9% would apparently have sex. And a meager 3% would pray. Maybe the rest feel that any which way we are marching to meet the Maker and why waste time thinking about Him in those precious 60 minutes left. Or maybe, all of us are aware that we have a bagful of sins that we can’t confess to, in just 60 minutes. Or maybe we are certain that there can be no amends at all.

I remember reading a sci-fi short story. Could be Arthur C Clarke I guess. Not very sure! It has a similar situation. And invariably people turn to love. Love for their neighbors, strangers and countries which had been fighting since their birth get together in a moment of reality.

It is strange about what people can do when they know that their time is out. There is a good piece about Bhutto’s last day by Kushwant Singh and he explains how once a suave but dictatorial person who had scant respect for the lives of people, turns maudlin when he knows that time’s up. Apparently in a rare moment of indiscretion he blurted out where the money was stashed and it was impounded before he was hanged. I have read about people while walking towards the gallows; carefully sidestep a pool of water lest their legs get dirty. But the common thread is that everyone turns stoical or religious. Suddenly remember God or their shortcomings, when it’s anyway too late. This is in contrast to the survey results. Maybe it is one thing to imagine a holocaust and tell what they would do and facing it is another thing. I would anytime go for the real accounts and not the survey.

Coming to think of it, what would I do? It is pretty blank to forecast. I don’t think I have any unfulfilled desire that I would want to pursue in those 60 minutes. Or that I would suddenly discover what I have not done so far. Maybe I have not called many people for a long time, not told them that I care. But in my own small circle, I have never missed an opportunity to display warmth and affection. I spend all my free time with the loved ones. Maybe for a change try calling up some lowlifes and tell what I think of them, lest they die with a grand thought of they being good. Few things that I would want to do will take more than 60 minutes, like turning out to be a great musician.

Incomplete things like the book that I had been trying to write will anyway find no meaning in completion. Had enough and more of beer in life, so I may not reach out for that. ( anyway who wants a warm beer as a send-off drink ) . I don’t think I will pray either. I see no meaning in that, when all I had been taught and known to pray is about everyone being well. When you know that none of them are going to be in existence in the next hour, there is nothing you can pray about. And there is nothing to confess for I have always believed in what I was doing at any time. I would not be scared either.

I have always been a hedonist in my life, so it is pretty difficult to think of what is left to pursue. The only thing I can think of doing is complete the book that I would be reading at that time. Why die with some suspense!!!

Come to think of it, looks like the running life is so full and pleasing and to realize that it takes a damned doomsday dream.

Why do People fall in Love???

There are many theories that float around about why people fall in love. Someone once wrote that it is because of excess secretion of phenylethylamine in the system. Sigmund Freud said that ‘Love and work are the cornerstones of humaneness’, but at the same breath said that ‘One is very crazy when in love’.

Psychologist Zick Rubin proposed that romantic love is made up of three elements: attachment, caring, and intimacy. Attachment is the need to receive care, approval, and physical contact with the other person. Caring involves valuing the other person’s needs and happiness as much as your own. Intimacy refers to the sharing of thoughts, desires, and feelings with the other person.

John Lee compared styles of love to the color wheel. Just as there are three primary colors, Lee suggested that there are three primary styles of love. These three styles of love are: (1) Eros, (2) Ludos, and (3) Storge.

Continuing the color wheel analogy, Lee proposed that just as the primary colors can be combined to create complementary colors, these three primary styles of love could be combined to create nine different secondary love styles. For example, a combination of Eros and Ludos results in Mania, or obsessive love.

Lee theorized more styles out of the three primary styles namely 1. Eros – Loving an ideal person, 2. Ludos – Love as a game.3. Storge – Love as friendship & Three secondary styles: 1. Mania (Eros + Ludos) – Obsessive love, 2. Pragma (Ludos + Storge) – Realistic and practical love, 3. Agape (Eros + Storge) – Selfless love

There is also a triangular theory of love by another psychologist, once again a combination of 3 factors of intimacy, passion and commitment.

Enough of the theoretical aspects and definitions of love! It is just beyond my head. I don’t think that love is something that can be defined so precisely and it is just one crazy stuff like Freud said. It just appears from nowhere and occupies a major part of your thinking, giving sanity a long holiday. But at the end of it you feel so great being insane. That seems to be the beauty of love. As John Dryden said, there is a pleasure in madness which no one but madmen know. And, love looks like a perfect fit to endorse his quote.

But, what bothers me is a small thing. Maybe something to do with the English language! And that is ‘Why do people fall in love’ and not ‘rise in love’???

Fishy Stuff

I have been always a character who came across as someone who held some intrigue. That’s for people who don’t know me really. The closer folks know that there is no secret in my life and am as open as they come across. So there is actually nothing fishy that I am going to write about. This one is different.

I had always been fascinated by pets. And when I say pets, I don’t have any bias. Anything that knows it should not bite the master will qualify as a pet for me. Though not to the extent of Steve Irwin, I have always fancied myself to be closer to animals than the Homo Sapiens! I have never feared them. On the contrary my dream job as I claim is to be a zoo-keeper. Live with the animals day in and day out! Maybe because they don’t talk back! They give one look at you, sometimes if they are feeling friendly, may offer a gesture that you can presume as a smile, or most times they ignore you and mind their business. And I see it pretty close to my character. And amongst accepted peer groups, friends and families, they are as friendly as anyone can be.

I am mad about dogs. I think I can understand what they express without fail always. A dog Dr Dolittle!! And more often than not, I had been right in my guessing and with Gabriela I lived a charmed life. She is a very funny character. I sometimes called her as MRP, standing for Mentally Retarded Pet. But, a fiercely determined one! No one can express as much as her and here I include the human beings too. Maybe we had a common language, which mostly could have been love and hence there was never a need for words. When she died, it was a very bad loss. But I thought that it could be repaired. Had another couple of dogs, Anbu & Maggie, but both of them never turned out to be Gaby. And there were more difference of opinions than agreements and I felt very tired having them. Luckily for them, they found a good home for themselves and are having a fabulous time.

My destiny with pets, I guessed was at wit’s end. Kept dreaming about getting into a villa and have a pack of dogs and maybe find another Gaby in that somehow. When the desire got the better of me and I make a feeble attempt to bring another pup home, I face fierce resistance from stronger species. And then it happened. Our servant maid’s son landed up with a fish tank and left it at my place.

The fishes were so tiny that I needed an electron microscope to see them. And they were such boring creatures. The ones in that tank was dull colored and generally floated around almost looking forward to their date of death. I started wondering about my philosophy of managing my life with any animal species, because these guys didn’t even acknowledge my presence and they were swimming in my home. But anyway I was curious about them. Out of the 4, one fish ended belly up one morning. The second one disappeared without a trace. Broke my head on finding that Houdini fish and gave up! Maybe it committed suicide by jumping out or just didn’t bother to come back to the tank when the cleaning happened.

And suddenly, I announced that I will have an aquarium at home. Wanted to provide the best of the environments for the fishes to live! I never knew that setting up one could be so costly, but having decided there was no going back. It was one big learning process. What all goes into an aquarium, the fishes & the works. Blowing a fortune, I have now built one. Got about 5 pairs initially, as the fish doctor advised! I really wanted some 20 pairs because the aquarium could hold all the fishes in the Pacific Ocean, but the fish guy wasn’t too keen. He warned against two things. One is the adaptability of fishes and second is their peaceful coexistence.

The naming ceremony was big fun, they are called

Manjula & Jaldi Haldi,
Neelambari, Sigappi, Azhukki & Dirty Harry
Kallan & Kullan
Karuppasami and Mundakanni

And then my understanding about them changed. These fishes are amazing. Never knew that they had a mind on their own. My perception about fishes was limited to what you get at the restaurants. But 10 days with them now, I realize they could be real good pets. Each one has its own idiosyncrasy. The mean black sharks display maximum cowardice. They are scared about people’s voices. How come they are going to survive in a veritable zoo my home is, I don’t know. The yellow ones are extremely social and they can’t stand any fish being morose. They keep poking the out of mood fishes and encourage them to join the mainstream. The other bunch which the fish guy claimed to be friendly is living up to the name. Jumping at each other and generally swimming around as a school, they make the entire aquarium colorful.

The sad story is about the other pair, Kallan & Kullan. Third day on arrival, one of them died and I will spare the graphic details. And for the next 7 days, the other one has mourned for it, just staying at the same place only breathing. Never knew that they were so sensitive. And all of a sudden, I have started seeing them as real pets, the ones with real heart and care.

Now, I am worried. About the welfare of them! And going by the trend at home, it won’t be too long before a fish doctor is spotted and keeps visiting for maintenance. And we go thin because these tiny creatures don’t eat. :(

Change of Address

Hi Guys,

For a while I am hanging out in Sulekha. Check me out there.

http://tsganth.sulekha.com/

To Fix or Float

No this has got anything to do with my wanderlust nature. For that matter, if I ever thought in these lines, my choice would have been pretty simple. I prefer to float. Fixed is not my thing.

But if life’s philosophy by any chance is guided by home loans, I guess I may never float. Think about this. I was a happy-go- lucky guy who was peacefully staying in rented houses. Lived in 13 houses in 13 years! My job was the primary reason, but then staying in a rented place gave me the flexibility. I coolly answered that I am mobile. Since I never had the worry of renting my own house, adjust in a new place blah blah. And every time it was a change too. A little bit of an expense here and there in changing furnishings, but nonetheless a welcome change from the faded window screens and curtains that you convince yourself to live with in your own house. And in a way rented houses helped fueling my imagination about what my own house could be. And always stay optimistic that one day life is going to be great.

Then all of a sudden all this changed. One day I ended up seeing an advertisement that offered 110% loan for homes. Now that was my kind of loan. With just about 60 bucks in the pocket and a sizeable credit card loan, owning a house was a pipedream to me. And whenever that fancy occurred to me, I was brutally tossed away by the realities of real estate markets. 30% black money and in the balance 70%, you can get a loan for only 75% of that amount. In effect I needed to have atleast 45% plus of the property cost as my own funds. This was possible, only if any Nigerian royalty bequeaths his estate to me like it is claimed in the spam emails. So, I gave up my dream as soon as it cropped up.

And this 110% thing brought some real hope. I thought that maybe that Nigerian royalty has reincarnated as a Marketing Manager in IDBI bank. Jumped at the offer and mind you, my payslip was really respectful to fetch me a handsome loan. That is because payslips are not bank statements and they don’t tell the story of your credit-worthiness. Once I got the loan sanctioned, I started hunting for a house and found a real dream house which was just about 30% above my budget. Well it is a different story that I stayed dreaming big and eventually managed to buy the same property with 60 bucks in my hand, with a kindhearted friend buying tea for all the folks who turned up in the registrar’s office.

The bankers were also present to handover the first installment cheque to the builder. And in the melee, I don’t remember what I signed on. Not that I was an expert that on carefully reading the loan document, I would have taken a learned decision. My knowledge in money matters doesn’t really matter at all. My child can give me a lesson or two. ( OK, this was an exaggeration, being my child she also is zilch in that. Maybe some other child would be better ). Apparently I had chosen a Floating Interest rate.

That’s where the trouble is now. Things were ok for a couple of years and one fine day I got a missive from my bankers. They kindly asked me to make a part prepayment of the loan to retain the EMI amount and period as such. Couple of year’s progress only meant that instead of 60 bucks in my hand, I now had some 180 bucks in hand. And 180 bucks was not considered as part prepayment by my bankers. I took their alternate suggestion and increased my EMI amount by about 10%. Then life returned again to normalcy.

But then bankers are a different tribe. They will first allot sub prime loans, meaning they will provide loans what you don’t deserve and then come back at you heavily. I don’t know what kind of a honesty that is. So they started again. This time around though they knew I would be incapable of making part prepayment, what with the qualifying criteria for the amount not changing. So unilaterally they have just decided and informed me that my loan tenure has been extended by just another 13 years. I initially was overwhelmed with their best wishes of me living for another 13 more years than scheduled.

But then it pisses me off also. I was a happy-go-lucky guy. Didn’t I tell you that? Now I am worried. I don’t know whether my children will inherit the home or the loan. And I am also cursing myself for not being smart to choose a fixed interest rate. I don’t know when this ordeal will get over. I am certain that in another 2 years I will get one more letter stating that my tenure is now 120 years and I should nominate my grandson for repaying the loan.

One saving grace is that, they say that not a single bank offers a true-blue fixed rate and always retains the authority to change the interest rates as it deem to be. And 90% of the loaned population floats. Irrespective of whether they have read the fine print

Afterall I am an intelligent guy and I know I would not make a mistake. A dream penthouse with a 140 year loan tenure is not easy picking ok ?

Irumbukkai Maayavi

In my first post I reasoned out that I am going to blog because someone will reach out to me and give information on ‘irumbukkai maayavi’. And after almost a year, I did get some dope on this. Of course on my own! No one really reached out to me. I wonder about what these search engines do in life. But anyway now they helped me.

A bit of history before going further! There was a time in this Planet Earth when the television did not exist. And entertainment during that time was either playing out in the streets without wasting a single ray of the Sun or if the going really gets tough ( I am not talking about the Sun, but the heat that is generated at home because of my wanderlust ), one invariably land up with some comics. Well, I was still struggling with English and that meant comics were not the Tintin’s and the Asterix’s. They were Tamizh comics.

And Tamizh comics were of two genres. One was serialized in magazines with India and Indian characters as the base. My favorite there was ‘Moondru Manthirvathikal’ ( Three magicians ). One guy was capable of crossing 100 miles in one step, other guy was capable was drinking the whole ocean and the third guy I don’t remember. Their exploits to save a princess from an evil guy whose life was secretly vaulted inside a small flower that resided underneath an ocean which is beyond a million mountains blah blah, was simply awesome and I was really empathizing with the princess was mighty worried about her life ( Now I know why I am worried about the welfare of women and get friendly with them , it’s all because of the comics ). It used be great fun.

The second genre was comics translated from English. We had Phantom, Magician Mandrake, Irumbukkai Maayavi, David & Lawrence etc. While in most comics the characters just appeared as it is with the same name and just translated, irumbukkai maayavi alone had this special name. Was he any good!!! Don’t even ask, all my life I only wanted to be him. He had this steel hand from the wrist and if he put his finger into an electrical socket he will disappear. In the seventies, I guess there was nothing more exhilarating than this. Book after book I read and still it was always insatiable. And even after I grew up, I still have this craving to read about his exploits and been researching in the Net to figure out more.

And I hit pay dirt recently. I learnt more about my hero. He is Louis Crandell a.k.a Steel Claw. A British secret service agent at a later date, he starts as a Lab assistant who loses his hand in an accident and the metal prosthetic he fixes makes him so powerful. He gets invisible when he comes in contact with electricity. He becomes a crook first and does evil stuff with his newfound ability and later becomes a good guy. Now I am hopeful of getting some Louis Crandell comics from the US and read to my heart’s content.

Come to think of it, I guess these are the stuff that forms you as a person. What you read, what you believe while you are very young. Sometime so naïve to believe everything ( I once tried putting my finger into a socket like him and had a huge shock and thrown a few feet off . Hasn’t told anyone about this foolish exploit till now, then because of fear, till now because of shame.

Most times these days when I see my daughters glued on to the TV, I start cribbing that they miss all the fun in life, maybe it is the Parent ego state in me talking. But somehow I am certain that it was more fun then than what they have now. Graphics simply has killed the imagination of the kids.

Even now sometimes when it is kinda depressing I wish that I could become Maayavi and become invisible for a while. Or when I come across stupid but lucky guys, I wish I could just scorch them to ashes as a Maayavi.

The boy in you never dies!!! Or the idealist in you never sleeps!!!

http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/s/stclaw.htm

Places

There is an overwhelming demand about the next blog ( if you can call 2 people asking as overwhelming ). This two men army has asked why there is such a delay in writing and I already feel like a king. The fact that there are people expecting you to say something is heart-warming.

Just that I don’t have much to say. Been busy! That’s also a reason. Hey, this is not to say that I was idle in Sify, you may presume that at your own peril but you will be right in your presumption, just that I don’t want the guys who paid me handsomely to have some kind of remorse. But anyway they aren’t those types of people. If there is something called as remorse, there would be something called as conscience and that means they would atleast rarely do some right things. So let’s not worry too much about this. Yes I was having a lot of time while I was at Sify and now I find myself doing decent work.

Life is one funny thing. You seem to think that you belong to a place and grow a feeling of sadness about leaving the place. Only to come out and find that there are other places which are simply great. Places where you are seen as a human being, an intelligent one at that and give the respect you deserve. And I think maybe because you are new, people go out of the way to smile at you, please you and you get stuff like a new laptop, Datacard for remote connectivity blah blah on the first day, so you also start feeling pretty special.

But the fact is places are nothing but people. You feel sad about leaving the place because of the people there. There I can’t have any other feeling but sadness. And despite the respect in a new place, till the time the people know you as a person as you had been known, it is just an alien territory.

There is always a piece of heart that is left behind in every special place, a place made special because of wonderful folks. And I am not ashamed to say that I left a piece of mine at Sify.

This is dedicated to all you wonderful folks. May you all find special places for yourself pretty soon. And here is a stanza from an amazing song from Beatles about places.

There are places I remember all my life,
Though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain.
All these places have their moments
Of lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I loved them all.

Storm in a 'B' cup

This is the latest raging debate in the US of A. This was triggered by what Hilary Clinton wore in a TV debate and a fashion writer chose to participate in the proceedings. Obviously he had no opinions about the National Security Policy and he decided to talk about what he knows and the security of the men around him. He commented about the pink blazer and the black tops which showed a bit of a cleavage line.

And then the storm started. Everyone is now jumping talking about how a woman is judged based on what she wears and not by what she talks. OK, I am not a prude. I am definitely not one. Why else I would try to be non-conservative by wearing a ponytail and bright shirts to work, when the bosses swear by what they call as Power dressing that is plain shirts in blue or white with a staid tie. But even I have my opinions about what women should wear for work.

Not that I am a MCP and have different rules for different genders. Just that, I am passing an opinion because I know what others talk about it ( as topic no 2 in a pubbing session, used to be no 1 earlier, but more recently at my office Boss-Bashing has become the pressing priority, this has been given the second slot ). It is like this. If someone is going to kid herself that men would look and comment upon women, which is catalyzed by what they wear, then we are in Planet Mars. I am not passing a judgment here whether it is right or wrong, or I may even confess that it is not right. But the reality is that men do.

The primary vocation of men I suppose is watching women and try to get a sneak preview. If the attempt is aided, then it is welcome. Maybe, if something changes in the way we reproduce then this will also change. Maybe when cloning is the order of the day and men had to use theirs for pissing only, this will change. But men’s brain is designed to look for opportunities to procreate and now that has become the main recreation. ( I know this is a typical MCP judgmental statement ! ). The fact I am trying to drive home is that, it takes an evolutionary change and not plain education and etiquette.

Otherwise, why would people talk about Sania’s T Shirt and nose ring instead of her forehand and backhands? It is tough on the women, but then I think it is so for men also when they are going to be watched. No one would approve a shorts & a blazer, tie unless you come from Fiji islands ( there I think they would not mind if women don’t wear anything on top, leave alone the cleavage ).

All I would say is that, just be prepared to be noticed if you dare to dress differently and you know you stand in a crowd. There are many people who have asked me in recent days about my long hair. They would. If you are men, they will walk across and talk. If you are women they will walk away and talk, including their own ilk.

But it is a shame, real shame. Even if I bring the evolutionary practices to men’s defense, it should be remembered that men adorned themselves with all kinds of ugly things to scare the enemy and women just did the opposite. So, guess we need to give them a break.

But then it is kind of tough to ignore a B Cup. Ain’t it ?

Quitting

It takes quite an effort to take the decision of quitting from an organization, where you had been gainfully employed for 9 long years. And that too, when you started your work there it was a start-up and later became a behemoth and you can take pride in making it so by contributing your bit.

Come to think of it, leaving a job of 9 years is something like divorce. Death & Divorce are highly personal according to me. There is no overt reason about why these stuff happen. But people inside would have suffered silently for long that they would rather welcome the end.

There will be some untellable reason that would force someone to take the extreme step of quitting a marriage, which mostly gets played to an audience that includes the ‘supposed’ stakeholders who are not an actual part of the marriage. Deep inside you would know nothing works and the marriage sucks. There will not even be a mirage of happiness in the couple of centuries to come. But you may still hang on, not even on the proverbial thread of hope, but out of sheer compulsion of the playing the main role in the drama. Afterall the audience loves it !!

This is all because at most times we don’t want to hurt people. We want to take the role of Atlas and carry the burden of the world on our shoulder and smile for a mug shot. Only you know that the knees are jelly and given a chance you will throw the world aside and sit down for a while. Or sometimes because of fear! Fear of an uncertain future ( actually this is a redundant phrase, when has future ever been certain ) , whether life will be the same after I quit. But if the current one is plain shit, why would you even care about how shittier future can become.

Actually all these symptoms should appear when you quit a 9 year job. Your throat gets parched, the fingers tremble while you type the letter of separation, get maudlin about leaving the folks with whom you have associated for half of your professional life, start thinking that furniture will miss you and strongly believe that the business will die without you.

For me, there is nothing like that. I am plainly delirious. I care a damn about what is in store for me in the so-called uncertain future. All I know that my present is simply great, after having taken a decision.

I feel light as if I have attained Nirvana. And I am soaked in a state of bliss and feel like that I am sitting on top of the world that Atlas carries. And I will tell you, it is much better to sit on top than carrying it. I would highly recommend it to all. : ))

Handyman

I am a handyman. But the first fear with folks at home when things conk off is about this ability of mine. Instead of being encouraging and appreciative, I am often laughed at. They feel that if the gadget failing is a misery; my trying to repair it is an addition to that misery.

Just think of it. There is something that works well and suddenly gets into a non-performance mode. What will you do as a guy who grew up a steady dose of logic? Isn’t so natural to figure out what is wrong with the damn thing? I hate losing to gadgets. How can they get the better of us when on first place we make them? Treating them like Frankenstein is just not my thing. For that matter to any self-respecting individual!

So, I pick up my tool kit at the drop of the hat every time we have such calamity at home. Sure I apply logic and arrive at the culprit part. But before that, it is a question of having the right tools. You are not a qualified mechanic and not being one means that you don’t have the proper paraphernalia. But then if that is going to be a deterrent, how on earth you will progress in life as a handyman. So, I generally employ a single screwdriver to unlock any type of screw, be it star, hexagonal, straight. Believe me, it works. It is just a matter of attitude and a bit of a pressure. Anything gives in. Only problem is that you can't lock them again. The threads can’t take so much pressure. Didn’t I tell you that the gadgets are lesser than you?

Once I get into the heart of the gadget, sometimes when the diagnosis is not very clear, I apply some trial & error. It does not cause more harm. The damn thing doesn’t work anyway on the first place. Somehow I identify the problem, but once again your unqualified nature conspires and you don’t have the corrective tools. No soldering iron, no lead and despite having known the issue, you end up not fixing it. That’s the biggest pain in the world.

But, sometimes the issue won’t be that big and I resolve it easily. The gadget starts behaving and I put it back together. And then find a couple of parts being redundant. The stuff works without them. The reason is the cost of real estate. These days it is so high that the manufacturers don’t want to store unnecessary stuff occupying space in their facilities. So, they dump it in your gadget. And it also gives a heavy big feeling when you cough up thousands of rupees.

In all, I am just thrilled about being so proficient, but folks have a completely different opinion about me. Plain jealousy I think! But it is true that anyway the gadget goes for service to the shop again or I end up buying a new one. Hey, it is my money OK ?!!

Parking

If you ask, in today’s life what is the biggest challenge, I would unhesitatingly vote for Parking. All your life, you keep thinking that you want to move on. But the biggest hurdle comes in the form of parking the vehicle.

Wherever it can be, whether an evening trip to a mall or the mandatory trip to the office in the morning. The most uncivilized behavior of human beings is at full flow during these times.

This morning, someone in the office parking lot was in a hurry. Which on first place I don’t understand about. If only we were making millions every minute that we need to rush like that, then my name would have been Bill Gates. This character was in such haste that he parked in a slope in neutral and ran towards the building. I was parked behind and I could see his car following him on it's own. But he wasn’t turning back a bit and his car continued moving till it kissed another car’s behind. Maybe it runs in their family!! Worse was that someone in that melee parked his car in that slot which the fuzzy intelligent car vacated.

And the shapes of the cars, I will tell you, there is not a single day I don't rue having a big car. Some cars that appear like suitcases can actually get parked horizontally in the same space allotted to you in which you break your side mirror. It’s a different fact that these cars can be lifted in reality from any parking space and drove on.

Finding your car without a remote beep is tougher than making George Bush intelligent. In a mall with multi-leveled parking, you get to your car only if you ancestors have fed millions of needy people. Otherwise, you buy a yellow car.

And the valets are a breed unto themselves! In huge demand, they always meddle your seat position, side mirror, and rear-view mirror for that small drive towards a slot. And when you get in, you feel like you have robbed a car and sitting on that.

To get rid of all these troubles, I have always considered having a driver. But the parking troubles are lesser compared to them. First they screw up your car, second they all think that in the entire solar system they know about cars and driving much better so much so, they reply to you in such condescending manner almost meaning to tell you, how in earth you bought such a big car when you can be so stupid.

I wish there will be a day they invent cars, that can move like crabs sideways, or something that is so intelligent that it can go home on its own and return to pick you up, or something that can shrink and expand as per will, that you can stop, shrink and pocket them. Or just plainly walk!!

Shock of my Life

Electricity is a dangerous thing. We have heard it many times. I, in particular am so scared of getting a shock. So much so, while I was in college in the EE Lab, I used to switch off the mains every time I changed circuits. One professor was watching this with amusement and asked me politely what was I trying to do. When I explained, he retorted, why didn’t you think about going to the sub station and switch off the mains there.

OK, I once again got a big shock yesterday. That was not because of any indiscretion from my part. It was the bill !! It was 4440 bucks. I didn’t know how we missed out the 4 in the tens unit !! Could have been a great number then, 4444! Apart from this there was nothing funny about it. Can you imagine, your bill running so high? For a moment I thought maybe Sun has taken a holiday only at our place.

Then I knew! It was the daughters! My suspicion is that these guys eat electricity and am going to crosscheck the provision bill for the month. That should be lesser. Afterall there is only so much kids can eat and they can't eat both electricity and normal stuff. My younger one walks into the house after a long 3 Hr school straight into her room, switches on the TV and AC. Then it is on all the time. So much so, that when I enter their room in the night to say Good night, I feel I am in Siberia and maybe think of taking visa next time. How on next morning these kids wake up soft is a mystery. They should actually be frozen and on tripping they should break. Maybe one day we will create history by getting frostbites in a place like Chennai.

If that was one piece of the puzzle, the other is our AC. My guess is that the machine should be older than Julius Caesar. It drones and drones. It actually doubles up as an anti-theft burglary alarm also. That’s why I haven’t thrown it off still. It makes more noise than it cools, that anyone attempting to break in will think that everybody is awake and there is a huge war happening and out of sheer safety compulsions, he would not attempt the task. Now, can you ill-treat a machine which does something beyond it’s brief? Where is compassion then? Anyway, my conscience working this way surely adds up to the bill though. Point is that, this grand old AC sucks up life from all other appliances also. The rest of them, dim and start moaning and one by one start dying soon I am sure.

And, my folks are a funny lot. The kitchen faces the sea at my house ( that’s another story unto itself, the builder for want of maintaining the vasthu has tucked the bedroom in one remote corner of the house and provided a great view of the sea from the kitchen. ). This means that the Sun is right up there in the morning coming into the kitchen. You know what these guys did? Since it was so hot, they covered the windows with a dark sunscreen and keep it closed. So, the light & heat is cut off. To have it in the ideal level, they then employ the fan and lights.

And of course the TV! One day when the younger one wasn’t there, I was completely restless. Then realized that without the voice of Popeye, Johnny Bravo, squeaking of Jerry, Bob the Builder and the Ninja Turtles, I am a goner. These guys actually own the living room. And one day I am certain they all would be sitting on the dining table with my kids.

Leave the washing machine that eats our money more than cleans, the refrigerator that is completely stuffed all the time, but does not produce one decent thing for you to eat when you want, the PC that suffers from a delusion of working on a 24 Hrs shift. These are the side cast.

It looks like it may cost me lesser if I pay 50 bucks everyday to the EB lineman to switch off the fuse in the post that carries the supply to my house. But then I would be searching the light of my life perennially then!!

Starstruck

I can’t understand our obsession with the film stars. For anything and everything we need them. Be it a Diwali day program on TV or a product launch, these guys are always there. And some of them would probably not know why they are there on first place. And absolutely ignorant of anything topical!

What are they doing in an event like a portal launch? Half of them would not know what Internet is!! Maybe they will seriously think that it has got something to do with mosquitoes. Not every star is so foolish, I know a few who swear by the Net; have their own blogs etc. But they don’t sell! The media doesn’t get excited. Or they will be 'out of market' actors who get qualified only for launching textile and jewelry shops. Prasanth and Laila are addicted to the Net. Maybe they can really add some real glitter to an event like this. But who cares? Everyone wants only Nameetha and how less she wears. That is if you want only stars for your event.

But if you are willing to look beyond, there are real stars like writers who have their Web-pages, written books in Tamizh about the Net, or involved in user’s associations etc! These guys can really lend some credibility and image to such an event. But it appears that Publicity means parading cinema stars, who capture the imagination of the media, make reporters come and write about their etiquette and attire than the event by itself.

I am really sick of this obsession. If you visit the page www.ted.com, you get all kinds of interesting video lectures from renowned people on various subjects on earth, but then who cares about all these, as long as we can see Nameetha’s thigh. Because that’s where the future of this country lies, for all you might know she could be our next Chief Minister.

Nice guys finish second

This term was beaten to death when Stefan Edberg was consistently losing at one point of time in his career. Superficially it appears to be true all the times.

We keep seeing all the guys who are something somewhere are not all that nice. Guys, who mean one thing and say another thing. A friend of mine had a theory about this, about one of our ex-bosses. He never used to open his mouth fully when he says something. My friend kept insisting that somehow I feel what he says is not honest. Which was proved more than once! And I used to tell, maybe his devil side says what he is saying and somewhere deep inside, there is a good side that stops him from telling completely, and hence subconsciously restricts the movement of his lips.

Well, not everyone has such good side in them. If they have, it is a well-kept secret, to even themselves. So, they all are pretty eloquent when it comes to telling stuff that they don’t mean a word about. The megalomaniacs we have seen in history are such characters. I guess they hallucinate and believe in their own lies. And I never cease to amaze about their ability to tell white lies. Anyway, these are people who reach places. Maybe they lose at the end. Whenever I get into the trip of how bad guys get all the good things, there are soul mates who never fail to remind me that ultimately whatever can be construed as real happiness is already there with me and the bad guys will lose at sometime.

I continue to argue saying that a villain in a movie has a great life all through the 3 hours while the hero struggles, so how does it matter if the villain dies at the end. You anyway don’t stay back in the cinema to see how happy the others were. That’s how it is in real life too. Bad guys keep winning everywhere and probably you won’t be around to see their downfall. Either you will change teams, or jobs or maybe even kick the bucket. What is the use in believing about ‘one day these guys will get their share’? Only way to tackle this is you also becoming a bad guy. But unfortunately for many of us, that’s not the way we have practiced our lives. So, we would never do.

But let me tell you one thing. Nice guys may finish second. But not all who finish second are nice. : ))