Of discussions and arguments

 I never did like arguing. I mean, really, what's ever been the point in arguing with someone...you just keep on spouting beliefs, he keeps nattering about his and, at the end, both walk away completely convinced that they are right. About the only thing that possibly changes is that both end up being convinced that the other chap is too stupid to be considered human. (IF, of course, you did not start out with that conviction in the first place.)

Discussions, though...they are a different cup of tea. THERE you keep an open mind, try to learn something about the other guy's point of view, convey the logic of your own position and, perhaps, both of you could end up modifying the way you saw an issue. So, yeah, I did like discussing things although my contribution to any discussion where multiple people were involved was to pathetically bleat, "Say, listen..." only to have the whole lot treat it as background noise.

The thing is that discussions end up becoming arguments very often indeed. And, almost all the time, it is because instead of discussing an issue, you start calling the other guy names. THAT, generally, is the resort of the chap who wants the last word. Which essentially means that there is ALWAYS someone in any discussion who is there only to establish the rightness of his position and not to see why the other person holds the point of view that he does.

The funny thing is that the very chap who sets off the furor blames the others for converting a fruitful discussion into an argument. Like, he would say, "Only a fool will think that way" OR "THAT is the sort of opinion that arises from out of unthinking ignorance" or some such mild criticism of the issue under discussion. AND will be upset and aghast that the others seem to think that he was calling THEM fools or ignoramuses when he was only discussing the issue at hand. He laments that people cannot take criticism of their ideas and take it all personally. 'Alas! Where are those who understand that the rejection of their ideas is not a rejection of them as people," he cries after having set off a maelstrom which converts a discussion into an argument.

Of course, there were also the thin-skinned for whom that held true. You could hardly say a thing against whatever opinion they held without their assuming that you were calling them names. Just say, "You know that was how I thought till yesterday. Today, there is this news..." and they will start screaming, "So, you are telling me that I do not care to read the news? Just because I think differently from you, you start calling me names." And, there, that USED to be a discussion but is now an argument.

But, then, those were kindlier times.  We sort of thought that, perhaps, he is human but mistaken and can be brought around to thinking the right way. (Yeah, there is this theory that there ARE people who actually hold opinions but think that, maybe, the other guy has a point. Those mythical beings...maybe Rowling would write a book about them some day.) I mean, we did not START assuming that, if a guy holds an opinion different from ours, he is de facto someone who is too stupid to be human.

NOW that seem to be the norm. And, so, discussions...what ARE they? We know only arguments!

Play by the rules?

I have always been one with a great respect for rules. Respect? I actually effing depended on them so that I knew what to do under any given circumstances. Otherwise, I would only blink blankly like your smartphone would if there were no operating system in it to tell it what to do.

Now, these digital monsters have it easy. I mean, they have their rules written in code and, as long as they do what the code said, things were hunky-dory. I mean, yeah, their users could get frustrated and pull their hair out because the digi-monster was not doing what THEY wanted it to do but what does the digi-monster care anyway about that.

But, when you are a human...I mean, yeah, there are rules, alright but the thing is you are not always supposed to work as per the rule. I mean, there are times when the rule says you can do something but you are really not supposed to do it without getting the skin ripped off you. Like, say, your office hours may end at 6 PM as per rule, you may have nothing to do but if you promptly leave at 6 PM, your boss will tear a strip off you the next day for lack of dedication or some such shit. (Well, for you lucky non-working guys, it's like that run out for backing up. It's there in the rules but you are not supposed to do it. See?)

And then there are those things which are specifically prohibited in the rules but...I mean, like we guys were not supposed to indulge in bribery of Govt Officials and it's not like you have an expenditure head 'Bribes to Govt Officials' like you have, say, 'Salaries'. Try getting anywhere by sticking to the prohibition laid out in that rule, though. (Again, for the lucky drones, it's like sledging, you see. NOT allowed but...)

So, yes, there are these rules and there are these unwritten rules. You need to first learn the rules, then learn which of them are against the 'spirit of the game', which are prohibited by the rules but are IN the 'spirit of the game' and...

Around there, I get so dizzy that I do not know whether I am coming or going. And THEN they start talking about unwritten limits to unwritten rules...I really had lost it as far as office went, so let me give you the non-working version...you can call a man any names when you sledge, except...and the exceptions will be based on who is doing the 'excepting'. On one occasion, 'Maaki' was considered more acceptable than 'monkey'. In South India, at least, one would probably see the former as more insulting than the latter.

Broadly, one may say, people fall between the extremes of 'Do nothing that is not explicitly permitted' and 'Do anything that is not explicitly prohibited'. But the leaders are those who believe in 'Do anything that does not invite instant punishment'...thereby proving that a law is only as good as its implementation. And, then, what they do and do not do becomes the unwritten rules of behavior!

What with rules, unwritten rules, unwritten exemptions and limits to unwritten rules yada yada...Life would be simpler as a Smartphone!

The Confidence hack

I never really understood how to speak confidently in any gathering. (Yeah, yeah, the litany of what I never understood is long. So? You, of course, understand everything from the Big Bang to the String theory, from Nanotech to drones...good for you.) More often than not, I start bleating, "But..." and get drowned out by others who hardly seem to have noticed that I even opened my mouth. (Halitosis may have been a help, perhaps, in getting people to notice when you open your mouth. What is Halitosis? Well, you know everything, don't you? Why ask me?)

And then some chap pops up saying, "Well, simple! All it takes is to become an expert in the subject you want to speak about. Then it is easy to be confident." Umm! That is too much work. And, you know, it is not quite as easy as it sounds. I mean, I speak to other finance people about a project appraisal and...well, what if I am wrong? Or have forgotten something? Or...you see, it is all fine to talk of being an expert and, thus, confident but the issue is that I need to first be confident that I AM an expert. Now that...

But, then, when it comes to talking about the same project with other friends...now there I am confident. Interesting, come to think of it. I actually get even more confident talking about what's wrong with the management of the country's economy, especially when a lot of the people around me share similar views. (As in, come on, if you think high income taxes are counter-productive, are you really going to find much opposition in any given group of people, except if they all happen to be members of the ruling party?)

Perhaps I am on to something here. I mean this 'Know your subject' is all very well for confidence, though it is sort of tougher on you, since expertise is not something that you can instantly order on Amazon even if you have an Amazon Prime membership. But it is not really necessary, you know.

What is important is not that YOU know your subject; what is important is that others do NOT know that subject any more than you do or, ideally, far less. It is not YOUR knowledge that will give you confidence but your audience's ignorance. When you choose to speak to an audience, speak not of what they are likely to know but of what they are likely to not know.

So, the mantra for confidence is 'Know your audience'.

Now I realize

I keep reflecting on that one answer that Yudhishtra was supposed to have given the Yaksha in reply to the question, "What is the greatest miracle?" The eldest Pandava is supposed to have said, "Despite seeing human beings dying all around them, no-one expects to die himself." As usual, I am giving my own loose understanding here. (So what's new you ask? Well, as though you do not come here to get only the expected. I mean, if something you read is an unexpected view of anything you know, you would dismiss it as insane drivel, wouldn't you?)

Ah, no, age has not made me morbid. You are not about to read a lament about the ephemeral uncertainty of life here. What made me remember that thing was the fact that, when you see people of a certain age do some things, you laugh at them never expecting that the day may come when you would be that person. And then...

I mean, the stock figure of fun is the old man who goes, "In 1972 when I..." with all the people around him groaning and saying,"That is the sixth time I am hearing that story" with all the pathos of someone being water-boarded. I have laughed heartily in my time, yawned and groaned with the best of them when it was my turn to play audience and relieved the boredom by prompting the man with the next phrase in his story when he paused for breath. Alas, Karma is a hard taskmaster.

You know, apart from the weather, and your valuable opinions about how the country's economy can be better run than by the politicians of the day, the bulk of the ordinary person's conversations centers around himself. Every person's favorite topic of conversation is his own self. Mostly about what he will do, what he IS doing and what he has done.

When you are young and studying still, all you can talk about is what you WILL do for, after all, except to the most self-deluded, you are not really doing anything or have done anything. Later, you have the complete mix going for you. You'd have probably done something worth talking about - if only in how you pissed off a boss. You probably are doing things of interest, if it's only to undermine your colleague. And you certainly are intending to do something going forth.

When you are old...ah, well, you may be intending to do things but you really think anyone is interested? They take one look at your grey/bald head and...write off. You are in the so-called sunset years and they cannot be bothered with your dreams...what can you dream about except BP medication? Unless you want to be labeled mad, there's hardly a thing you can say about what you intend to do. And, in most cases, you really do intend to do nothing...except walk to the park and talk with other grey-beards about how much better the good old days were.

You aren't doing much either. So, about the only thing you have to talk about is what you HAVE done. Leaves you really with scant little to talk about. You'd put them all to sleep if you started describing the people you knew and the atmosphere of your office yada yada and, without that sort of background, most of your stories will lack any interest. Only a scant few can translate to an audience who do not know the people and the background. And, once you are done with all of them...well, what then?

Things are even worse for someone like me who quit at around 40. Much lesser years of DOING and, having started as early as that in conversations of what I had done...

Into my 27th retelling...and counting...

Before you laugh at me, just remember that first para. Your time will come too. Karma!

Olympian discussions

"Our hockey team has done us proud. Bronze medal at last. Hopefully we will get to win the gold soon. Even the women's hockey team missed the bronze only by a whisker," I said, flush with pride.

"Ah! So you have heard of this game called hockey now? What do you know of it?"

Huh! Why is it that I cannot even talk the topic of the day, in exactly the same manner as millions across the country do, without someone getting on my case?

"Umm...I think...yes, like cricket, it is played with bats and ball, but the score is in goals, like football."

"With this much interest in the sport, you have a right to be proud of the Indian team's performance."

You know, somehow it did not sound like he was being complimentary to me. Sort of like he was sneering at me for rushing in to shine with reflected glory when I had not ever bothered to support them otherwise but...anyway, if it is not an open insult it is not an insult in my dictionary. Otherwise, the color of my face will be perpetually red.

But best to get off the subject of hockey.

"Sindhu has won another medal. Only a bronze, though. Last time it was a silver."

"Yeah! By the way, how did she do in other tournaments between the last Olympics and now?"

Huh! There ARE other tournaments for badminton? Oh, well...

The chap was a face reader if not a mind-reader.

"What? Did you think that they kept her on a shelf after the last Olympics, dusted her off and sent her to participate this time?"

"No...but..." I said as I desperately sought to change the subject. "Hey, we won a gold this time. This Neeraj Chopra in Javelin...he showed up that German who claimed he would win comfortably."

"Ah! Yes! By the way, why did the German say that? I mean, what did Neeraj do before, that the German would specifically say that about him?"

Huh? And I thought I was done with all these general knowledge questions ever since I finished with the last of my job interviews. And, these days, I cannot make the simplest of remarks without one friend or the other making snide remarks about me.

They say offense is the best form of defense. Not that it has worked well for me in the past but what did I have to lose? The chap was walloping me anyway.

"What do you mean by all these comments? That I only pay attention to these guys when they win and ignore them otherwise?"

"Don't you? Tell me, what is the name of that gymnast you were going gaga about in the last Olympics?"

Gymnast...last Olympics? A vague memory stirred somewhere in the recesses of my mind. She did something...Russian-sounding...missed the bronze or some such...

I said as much.

"You are trying to recollect the Produnova vault. And the gymnast is Dipa Karmakar."

"Yes, Yes! So?"

"So, nothing. Just stop talking Olympics to me."

Now, I cannot even feel proud of my countrymen's Olympic achievements without following their sports with interest? What next, if someone wins a Nobel for Chemistry, I should do a PhD in Chemistry before touting how he was born in my state?

These friends I tell you...

Relativities

Relatives? Nah! Read the title properly, willya? Relativities, it says. Einstein and all that? You must be new to this blog if you really think that I have the brains to talk of the theory of relativity.

Though, come to think of it, the theory of relativity could well be a breeze compared to what I am about to rant against. I mean, this Einstein chappie, he sort of had mathematical formulae to determine how relative time was or distance was or whatever...the speed of light comes into it somewhere, I know, but mathematical formulae and I...we sort of do not get along. Anyway, if there is a formula, someone can reliably predict this type of relativity. I daresay even Einstein gave up on being able to predict this thing. (He probably said so in so many words, if I remember right. He did say something like "There are only two infinite things - the universe and human stupidity. And I am not sure about the universe")

So, there it is...I am perpetually bamboozled with the relativities of human nature. Renders me unfit company for man or beast, I know. I ought to know, considering the speed with which people drop me. Hot potatoes cannot beat my record in the speed of getting dropped.

Anyway, it started off with 'Drop in any time', which people who have been masochists enough to frequent this blog will remember. Sometimes it means 'Ideally when we are not at home'; sometimes it means 'No guarantee about us welcoming you in, though'; sometimes it means 'You may even be welcome if we are really bored and cannot think of anything better to do'; sometimes it may even really mean that you can drop in any time and find a welcome. The thing is when is it which. I bet Einstein will confess himself defeated if he had to find a formula for it. The meaning certainly is relative but is it predictable? I think not.

Sort of floating on the fringes of any discussion is an education in relativity of the human sort, really. I mean the way people react to the same action is also...err...relative. Though, in this case, it does have something to do with their relations with the guy who does it or the guy who is the victim of the deed or both. If you like the doer but would not normally like the deed, you go "Yeah, that was bad but what could the poor chap do. The other guy forced him to extremes." If you like the victim of the deed, "No matter the provocation this is just not done." If you do not like either chap, "Of course this chap is just the sort to do such heinous things but the other chap deserved it." If you like both and you are a conciliator type you try to convince each guy about the validity of the other guy's actions and reactions and earn both their enmity. If you are not into conciliation, you just think they will sort it out themselves and studiously avoid the topic. With so many variations, it is rather tough to puzzle out which of the relativities obtain in a given case. (Esp in social media. You see what you think is an obnoxious comment, jump in with spiked boots expecting to earn brownie points and end up stomped on yourself by the very people you try to impress. How are you to know that the commenter is a dear friend of your target audience and, therefore, what seems obnoxious to you at first sight is not really obnoxious after all? These human relativities, I tell you!)

Despite all this, I still retained a child-like faith in the idea that there was something called the real truth. I mean, the WAY people see a thing may differ but there IS such a thing as how it really happened...or should be, no? I mean, a comment may seem racist, say, to one recipient; seem like something just in bad taste to another; seem like an innocent comment to a third. All of these are true only to the extent of the IMPACT the comment made on the respective recipients. The truth about the comment is the INTENT of the person who made it, right? Whether it is racist, in bad taste or innocent or whatever? Whether the truth can be ascertained or not may be moot. But there IS a truth there...or so I thought.

But, apparently, there is no such thing called the REAL truth. Anyone who is not directly emotionally involved on any side of the discussion and attempts to seek the real truth is merely a fence-sitter who'd have whitewashed the Nazis. Someone who is just unwilling to pillory possibly innocent people and is all for safeguarding possible victims - No such being can exist!

So, now, apparently there is 'my truth' or 'your truth' but nothing called the real truth. AND we have also canceled lies...err...absolute lies, I mean. They just do not exist. What it means, of course, is that 'your truth' is 'my lies' and 'my truth' is 'your lies'.

Relativities! BAH!

Random ranting

I believe that it is customary to look back on life on some special dates. Birthdays, anniversaries of other sorts, on your death bed...dates like that. Me, I suddenly feel the need to look back on my blogging and writing on some arbitrary day. One would think that April 10th, which was the date in 2009 when I started this blog, or 14th Feb, which is the day in 2012 when I revived my blog, may be better dates for such retrospectives. ('Better that it never happens', you say? Whose blog is it anyway?) But, hey, I am the guy whose eyes, with a fine disdain for clocks and calendars, started demanding reading glasses well before 40 years of age, which is supposed to be the customary age for such things. So why expect any calendar-dictated logic for anything I do?

So there I started, in 2009, writing nineteen to a dozen and expecting the brightness of my writing genius to draw readers in like flies. (Bad analogy, I know. I mean who really wants to be considered a fly. Could not think of a better one this time. Apologies. Though, considering that most of the 'readers' are bots...) And discover that the page-views I was seeing on the blog stats were all mine, eagerly visiting and revisiting the blog to see if anyone had condescended to land up. (Yeah, yeah, I know I should have set up the blog for not counting my own visits. I was new, wasn't I?) So, I summarily abandoned the blog for a longish while.

Then in 2012, I revived it upon hearing about blog aggregators - Blogadda and Indiblogger at that time - wherein one could attempt to get unknown people to actually read your blogs. (Now THAT is one of those business models that get created and destroyed within a tenth of your lifetime in this day of the internet. Those were the guys who saw value in being intermediaries between companies and 'blog influencers' on social media. Little did they realize what the advent of Facebook, Instagram etc would do to their business model.)

That was the golden period of my blogging. I always THOUGHT I wrote humor but, you know, there is always a niggling doubt. And fear of rejection, especially with humor. You can get away with being somewhat tragic, somewhat thrilling...you know, halfway measures are fine. Humor...you either hit the bulls-eye or you do not. Is a joke that does not make you laugh 'somewhat a joke'? So, it was very gratifying when my blog got listed among the 'Top 5 humor blogs' by BlogAdda; top 13 humor blogs by Baggout; when it was in the top 40 humor blogs by some Philippines website (Philippines? Now, how the hell...but why look a gift horse in the mouth? Especially when you do not know whether it is just about to barf). The icing on the cake was when a RSS aggregator, Feedspot, listed my blog in the Top 100 funny blogs in the WORLD! Considering that the list included 9GAG and all, that was when I really felt that, perhaps, I was not deluding myself when I thought I wrote humor.

Not that I thought that, of all the billions of people in the world, I counted among the top 100. I mean, come on, not even one post of mine had gone 'viral'. (A blessing, that, come to think of it. Viral posts ARE like Covid. Only happens when it is controversial and then...well, the aftermath is not particularly humorous generally, unless you are thick-skinned. Me, my skin is like tissue-paper.) The thing was that SOMEONE not only thought I was a top humorist but actually told the world so!

I must have allowed it to go to my head I suppose. True, I had a few stories out in three anthologies. True also that I was actually asked for a novella by a small publisher, without my having gone around submitting my work for consideration. But, without all this blogging 'success', I may not have ventured into writing a humor novella.

This thing about writing a book was a revelation, I tell you. In fact, if you have been reading my blog fairly regularly, I HAVE told you in great detail in another rant here. When I had my book - A dog eat dog-food world - published, I had no idea of all that I had to do to sell the damn thing. I ended up feeling that a good author is someone with the writing ability of a Shakespeare, the charm of a George Clooney, the salesmanship of a P.T. Barnum and the serenity of a Buddha. Now me, I'm none of the above, so...

And, yet, the book managed to sell out its first print run. (All 100 copies of it, thank you for the applause. I did say small publisher, did I not?) There was no second run, the publisher having gone out of business. (NOT thanks to me, damn you. I did say that she sold all that she printed, didn't I?) The ebook, which I still hold the copyright for, keeps sporadically selling a copy here and a copy there. Apparently not everyone believes that books rot with age, like food, and cannot be consumed unless fresh.

You know, the funny thing was that I got reviews comparing me with PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Jerome K Jerome and what have you. Well, that's par for the course. If you write horror, you are the Indian Stephen King; write thrillers, you are the Indian Robert Ludlum and so on. And if you happen to be an American writing horror, it is likely to be 'Move over Stephen King; so-and-so is here'. So, it is but natural that a humorist almost automatically becomes the 'Indian PGW'. What astonished me was that, in a world that really knows only PGW as a humorist (other than stand-up comedians), everyone pulled out a different humorist for comparison. I was a bit peeved that they missed out Oscar Wilde (somewhat like Jerome K Jerome reading a list of diseases, finding himself afflicted by all of them, and miffed that housemaid's knee had somehow left him alone). But, then, if the only Wilde book they had read was 'Picture of Dorian Gray'...well, morbid was not what I wanted to be known for, anyway.

Where was I? Ah, being compared to great humorists and even having the book called 'the entire Philip Kotler dipped in gooey chocolate'. (Going by the size of the ONE Kotler book prescribed for Marketing Management, that would require MOUNDS of gooey chocolate!) The problem was that almost all of this was from relatively unknown people...social media friends and quite a few strangers; even Business Standard carried a review of the book.

Friends and family? Apart from the rare few (other than those I managed to badger into doing it), there was marked silence. Whether they felt it was a guilty pleasure (you know, like loving James Patterson but being ashamed of admitting to such low-brow interests and, thus, speaking only of Rushdie and Roy in public) or were diplomatic ('Why tell the poor guy that his book made me barf?') or would rather forget even my existence, leave alone my book's, I do not know. Considering that, with Whatsapp groups and all, your 'marketing' probably starts off with friends and family, I cannot help feeling that they possibly go "Ewww" like I am shoving a rotten fish into their face. Feeling like that, I am, quite naturally, a genius at marketing my books. ('IIM grad, writing spoofs of marketing management and a dud at it?' you ask? Why, pray, did you think that I chose to major in finance?)

What's the point of all this? Come on, you really expect coherence and a point in a RANT? Really?

So, anyway, it's been a while since I wrote, simply because I am not up to doing all the rest of what goes into selling a book. So, why I should have suddenly developed an interest in raking up my dead past, I do not know.

Except that, when I did, I found that I was STILL in that list of top 100 funny blogs. Hanging on by my fingernails, likely to drop off any time soon, but yet...

And, thus, hope springs eternal. Maybe I can egg myself on to write another book soon.

And you...you can start practicing your 'rotten fish' expressions!

Man of few words

Almost any person who has met me in person, and most especially those with whom I have felt comfortable about riding my hobbyhorses, will recoil in indignation at applying this 'Man of few words' to me. 'Verbal diarrhea' is probably the first word that springs to their lips if not the more poetic flight of fancy that one of them indulged in - 'Verbal diarrhea verging on verbal Niagara'.

Of course, those who have met me only when in a group are most likely to accept that description, except perhaps saying in surprise - "Few words? You mean he even has a few? I thought he had none." That is because I am rather shy of indulging in equestrian pursuits when in a group, so I very seldom climb aboard any hobbyhorse then.

And, then, to my total surprise, one of those unfortunates, who have been used to seeing me digging my spurs into my hobbyhorse and careening all over the place, called me a man of few words. And then, he qualified. "He is a man of few words and he keeps repeating them. Ad nauseam." I believe that it is a quote of what someone had said of someone else but that was no solace.

The point is, actually, who doesn't repeat himself at all? Only someone who keeps his mouth tightly closed all the time. It is just a question of who you are with, really. I mean, there really are too few people in the world with whom you share a wide range of interests. If you have a friend with whom you share an interest in books but he likes hard metal in music and you are into Carnatic music; he is a foodie and you can keep eating curd rice morning, noon and night and so on...well, what else do you talk to that chap except books? And, after a point, you bloody well will be repeating yourself, won't you, since what you have to say will all have been said, except on the rare occasions when you have a new book to discuss?

I suppose that's the same thing with meeting your school friends in a reunion. There are only so many times you can talk about the time you put the chewing gum in the teacher's chair and the time you hit all three stumps for a six with your reverse sweep...things like that. And, so, you go away and forget all about them till the next reunion where you can...repeat yourself. Unless, of course, you get really INTO what they are doing currently - job and family - so that there are more intersecting areas of interest.

The worst of it is ex-colleagues. I mean, most of your conversation WHILE you were all together would have been bitching about the company, your boss, the HR and office politics. And then you go away to another company. When you meet them after a while you find you have exactly nothing to talk about. You could not care less about THEIR boss, THEIR HR and THEIR office politics, even though you know those people. What's worse is when you start bitching about the boss and you suddenly find that they take offense because that chap had now become their best friend and revered mentor! As for YOUR boss, YOUR HR...well, all they can do is smile indulgently at your theatrics about these small issues and switch the conversation around to the weather. And, if there is anything more repetitive then weather...(I mean, I have never really found why people think it is so profound to say 'Kya garmi hai' in summer and 'Bahut tand hai aaj' in winter in Delhi. But, believe me, if I knocked out those words from all the conversations I had in Delhi, all I'd be left with is sepulchral silence for most of the days.)

These days, though, I find myself rather unhappy. I mean, yeah, it is not the greatest of things to be known as this man of repetitive few words but it was at least a distinguishing feature, something that made me unique. And, now, I find I am reduced to a minor player even in that ability.

I mean, listen to all the discussions of ANYTHING on TV, especially politics. ALL arguments on every side reduce themselves to even fewer words than I have used. Each side has its own limited set of words, the limits being set only by how many synonyms of the same word is known to the concerned parties.

Only goes to show my place in the scheme of things, even in using few words. A bit player, if that! Alas!

Sitting on the fence

 "You know what your problem is?"

Someone must really do a study about this, really! I mean, what is it about me that any friend who meets me feels the pressing need to introduce me to some problem in me within seconds of meeting me?

And it is not as though they are all talking about the same problem. Then, I can just say, "Yes! I know! My total inability to keep the hair on my head," and shut the guy up. But, no, everyone comes up with a new problem. Some day I should start listing out all the problems that people have found in me. I will probably end up with a comprehensive list of all the problems that it is possible for a human being to have. (Or, perhaps, like Jerome K Jerome, I may end up not having 'Housemaid's knee' or some such specifically female issue but, if so, that sort of thing is the only thing that I will miss out on having.)

"You persist in sitting on the fence. Most uncomfortable position. Neither side likes you and you end up with no friends."

The chap had something relevant to say after all. About the 'no friends' part. I mean, yeah, like most people who are not picky on Social media I too have close to thousand 'friends' on Facebook but, push comes to shove, I could not really see them do more than give a teary-eyed emoticon if I claimed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown...if not PUSHING me to a nervous breakdown by trolling me for not agreeing totally with their views!

"But," I said, "I mean...how do I choose a side? I find some things that this side says are relevant but other things that they support are terrible. I find a lot of things that the other side says are right but..."

"See, typical of a fence-sitter."

"Fence-sitter is the new term for being open-minded, is it?"

"Open-minded, fence-sitter, it is all semantics. What you are is neither fish nor fowl and so acceptable to neither side."

"But...I mean, come on, to choose a side I need to know who is right..."

"THAT's stupid. I really do not know how you survived so long. I mean, that is old-fashioned Boomer nonsense that you assess the ideas of a side and pick it if you find them right. The fact of the matter is that you pick your side and THEN you know which ideas are right...the ideas of your side!"

"But, damn it, are you saying that I should blindly..."

"THAT's your choice. I mean, yeah, it is much less stress on what you are pleased to call your brain to follow blindly. But it is not necessary. Once you are firmly on one side you will find that for ANYTHING you can always discover some interpretation to support what they support and oppose what they oppose. Even if you cannot find convenient 'facts' to support your viewpoint."

"AND what if I also see these...interpretations...for the other side?"

"See, THAT's only a problem if you have not picked your side. Once you have firmly decided on which side you fall, then you will find that the only interpretations you can see on the other side are those which paint them as villains; paint everything they support as the most hideous things on earth and anything they oppose as the best virtues. It's really that simple. Try it. You will make a lot of friends that way."

"So, then, tell me...which side do I pick?"

He threw his hand up in despair.

"You are incorrigible! Have you still not understood? It just does not matter which side. Pick the side on which your preferred potential friends are on."

Ye Gods! This modern world is too much for me!

Waiting

 I keep hearing of the existence of people who I would have thought belonged only in idealistic dreams. Like, apparently, there are those who can just continue to do their thing till whatever is being expected happens - the arrival of a guest, the arrival of an expected mail, things like that. They never really experience the tension of waiting nor are they upset by any delays. People say such specimens exist, people even proudly claim that THEY are themselves such specimens. Me...I do not belong in any such fantasy.

It all depends on what that thing is which I am waiting for. Whether I am merely looking at the clock once every five minutes or once every nanosecond; whether I do that while lying around on my bed or pacing the house like I am preparing for a marathon; whether only butterflies fly inside my stomach or scorpions sting the insides. You know how it is...are you waiting for an appointment letter after long days of layoff or is it a friend dropping in for a drink?

The strange thing about me is that I CAN wait in relative ease if someone specifies a date and time when it will happen. Till that date and time, I really am like those fantasy world people - getting on with life with no real pangs of waiting. It is only when it gets near the time that...well all that clock-watching, the marathons and the scorpions depending on the nature of the event.

The fun, if I may use some black humour, really starts if it does NOT happen at that time. THEN it is of no relevance as to what the event is. I am like a volcano holding in lava from that moment on. Why it should be, I don't know. I mean, if the same event had originally been expected a month later than that day, I can be placid. But if it gets delayed by about an hour, for that hour I am Vesuvius just before it blew its top.

Or, perhaps, I do know. Up to the time set for the happening of the event, I KNOW how long my wait will be. AFTER, though...Now I do not know how much longer it is going to take, how much longer I need to wait. That uncertainty is what causes the pregnant volcano imitation, I think. And perhaps rightly because if I am informed in time that the event will be delayed, no molten rocks scald my insides.

To wait or not to wait, that is the question which kills you, especially where you are also considering reminding the concerned people, or perhaps abandoning the appointment. Plus, of course, there are those people who keep you waiting as a power-play, and not so much because it is unavoidable, which is further reason for anger. It is never pleasant to be at the receiving end of power-plays no matter how enjoyable it feels to be at the end that is dishing it out. Once you start feeling that the wait is intended to show you your place in their scheme of things...well, the relationship goes downhill from there.

And now to wait...while you decide 'To read or not to read'!

Cooking up philosophy?

I never realized how much I really liked or disliked the various foods I ate till I started cooking myself. Alas, that unfortunate necessity did come into my life, thanks to getting a job in Delhi in times when neither salary nor availability of South Indian eateries was conducive to a regular routine of eating out.

Now, it is not like I did not know my mind. My mother would have vouched for that, what with having to deal with my 'Ooh! Why did you have to make upma?' and "What? Is this ALL the masala dosai I am going to get?" all through my life till then. Not to mention the "Nah! How can I eat that? It has more salt than needed" and all that. I do cudgel my memory to recollect any time I actually said something good about the food but to no avail. No, not senility, my memory is alright. The poor thing can remember something only if it had ever happened, after all.

And then came Delhi...and the need to cook. It was then I discovered how much of a foodie I am, how really finicky I was about taste and how much I liked and disliked various dishes. I mean, like when you are in a hurry, upma is about the fastest dish you can make and, so, I found that I really did not dislike upma after all. The taste even seemed to grow on me. A shade more salt in the food was not all that bad. Besides I needed more salt in my diet what with all my sweating.

The more interesting set of lessons were about how much I liked certain dishes. I mean, yeah, I still liked some of them - the arisi kozhukkattai, the urandai kozhukkattai and the likes - but, really, for all the effort that goes into making them...well, the long and short of it was that I did not like them enough to put in all that effort. When my mom made them, I could not have enough of them...when you are weighing your joy against someone else's efforts, somehow the joy always seems to outweigh the efforts. It is only when it comes to your own efforts that the scene seems to change. (WHAT?? There are people who actually LOVE cooking? So? There are even eccentrics who actually claim to love working.)

Which is one of those things that we seldom seem to apply in life. It is all fine to like a lot of things but very seldom do we see whether those things are worth to you the effort that goes into getting them. It doesn't help that, unlike cooking, you cannot directly correlate the effort with the acquisition. I mean, if you knew that the luxury car will cost you twelve years of being lambasted by a bad boss or six years of high stress and ulcers for a parting gift or some such, it would be easier to take the call on whether your trusty old Maruti suffices for you or no. But, unfortunately, you cannot correlate. Cooking is easier that way to assess...the effort is directly related to the dish. Unless, like me, you start off making upma and end up with a charcoal mine at the bottom of your wok.

The funny thing, though, is that the best cooks I know in my family seem to operate the same way when they are alone, cooking the dishes that take the least effort. It is only when they have family or guests that the dishes that take effort get made.

True of life too, innit? I mean, most of the effort you put in is not because of what you want yourself but because you want to please or impress other people.

Cooking can lead to valid philosophy after all!

Lacking SMQ

Ever since I heard of this mysterious thing called Social Quotient, I knew I never had it. Not that I really understood what the dratted thing meant but I was reasonably sure that an attitude of 'Leave me alone' did not qualify me for high marks in any ability that had 'social' associated with it.

I put that to being what people label as introverted. If that means someone who thinks he is happy in himself and other people can only cause a disturbance in his contentment, though they are needed in small doses. And, when this Social media thingy popped up, I jumped in joy. At last, I could take even those small doses at arms length.

And then I realized that I lacked even Social Media Quotient (SMQ). Worse than that Social Quotient in fact because there I could at least understand those with SQ though not in the least inclined to emulate them. Here...

I mean, take this meme.

"I think the semi-colon is totally unnecessary as punctuation. Convince me otherwise."

I do not know this chap from Adam, so I would hardly be bothered even if he were announcing dropping out of school. So why the heck would I want to convince him otherwise if he merely wanted to drop the semi-colon from his writing? It is not as though he was planning to drop my baby on its head or something.

I expect sepulchral silence from that group, most of whom shared the same ignorance of this chap, and know what happens? Hordes of people rush in to 'convince him otherwise' or offer excuses for why THEY use the semi-colon still. Clearly I lack SMQ for I was even unable to understand why the chap would get even one frigging reply except from those who want to try out their sarcasm.

But then I am the guy who still finds it odd that people will say, to the public on Facebook, things that they would feel free to say only to their closest friends when in person. I mean things like their heartbreaks, their grief about losing a loved one, the sort that I have always considered as private emotions. To me, it seems like standing in the middle of a market place and shrieking and sobbing loudly about breaking up with my lover or some such but what do I know? I lack SMQ after all.

But, whether lacking in SMQ or not, I will never forgive people for sharing pics of food during this lock-down. I mean, I sit here forced to eat only what my limited repertoire allows me to cook and these @#$% share pics of scrumptious food when I have no option except to drool all over my mobile bemoaning my deprivation.

SMQ? BAH!

Passing Time

Ever since I quit working, I have been faced with one question which I have been unable to even understand, leave alone answer. I keep getting asked how I manage to pass time.

Strangely, in my working days, I seem to have acquired a wholly undeserved reputation of being a workaholic. When that is the farthest from who I really was. It was just that I hated working so much that I used to want to finish it off as soon as possible so that I could get on with the more important activity of leaning back in my seat, closing my eyes and thinking deep thoughts, accompanied by a snore or two in the process. And, as it unfortunately happens in offices, the moment people hear your melodious snores they feel the irresistible need to helpfully push more work on you, assuming that you are bored of having nothing to do. Bored? Me?

Well, that comes from that queer notion that a man without anything to do will find it difficult to pass time. Me, I never felt the need. I mean, why did I have to do anything to make time pass? The minutes ticked and the seconds tocked without bothering about whether I was helping them along or no, so what was the problem? I allowed Time to go its way and I went mine, so there never really was a problem to pass time for me.

Like I have had reason to say before, when there is work to be done, Time just flew by. I start the day thinking I will get around to it soon and, before I know it, it is night and I feel that tomorrow is a better time to do it than today. And so it went. Perhaps that's what Einstein called relativity. Time seems to move faster when you have work than when you do not. Maybe that's the reason why people keep asking me "What do you do to pass time?" As a euphemistic question about what work I postpone.

Anyway, I do have my pastimes. Since childhood, I have been addicted to reading so I did not have to search for something to do when I had no convenient office to thrust things on me.

But, yes, I never thought of it as Time hanging heavy on my hands and waiting for me to give it a push by reading. If I had, then reading would probably have palled on me. It is only as long as it was something that I wanted to do that it was fun.

After all, if you start feeling that you HAVE to do something, it starts seeming like work!

False Friends?

"So now I know who are my real friends. So many false friends who did not even bother to check if I was OK in this Covid-19 lock down"

It's truly amazing how much one can learn from this Covid. I mean, even in my wildest dreams, I never thought to use this period to learn about who my true friends are. ("Ah! So, you claim you are capable of thinking?" you say? I can, thank you very much, it's just that I haven't tried so far.)

Quite true, isn't it? How could someone really care for you and remain happily ignorant of how you are doing in these troublesome times? Anyone who had an iota of concern for you would obviously want to know whether you are all right. And, yet, you know what, this intelligent soul who decided to use this yardstick for identifying her friends got such a lot of flak.

Social media, I tell you. They only need a reason to outrage and off they go, delving into their whole stock of abuses; selecting them with care or with gay abandon, depending on their personalities; and hurling them into the vastness of the Internet. 'Narcissistic', 'So that's all you can think of when people are suffering' and so on and so forth. All because the poor soul just wanted to find out who really cared and who didn't?

You know, the interesting thing is that these false friends were blissfully ignorant, had no conversation about the health and well-being of that poor soul, at all. And, as they say, it takes at least two to get into a conversation, unless you have multiple personalities crowding inside you and talking to each other.

AND it takes a particularly self-centered person to BE in a conversation, these days, especially with the other person seeking to know of their well-being, and NOT ask about how the other person is doing. So, the question really is:

'Did YOU care enough to call the other person to check on THEIR well-being?'

In the moment

"I don't understand this 'Carpe Diem' thing", I said.

"So, what else is new? If you understood something...anything...THAT would be worth telling."

Yeah, I know and I know you are wondering why I keep giving people openings to take digs at me. But, then, the only way for me to avoid being the butt of such comments would be for me to say nothing at all. And that is certainly not an option.

"But this 'Carpe Diem'. Don't tell me you understand it. The same guys who tell you to 'live in the moment' also tell you to plan for the future. Contradictory, I tell you."

"That is what I would expect you to think. After all, you are the guy who never did understand that the effort you put into learning a subject had a direct impact on your grades."

"You mean, it mattered? That if I had sat up and studied..." I took a look at his face and said hastily, "Leave it. It's not like I am going to improve any grades now by understanding it."

"Yeah! Leave it", he muttered. "Knowing you, you'd then start reading up on the circulatory system and expect your BP to get under control because you spent hours reading that up."

"Will it...Leave it. But this 'Carpe Diem' thing..."

"Let me tell you in a way you will understand. Not that anything can make you understand but this is the simplest I can make it."

Swallowing the whiny words that threatened to erupt from my throat, I looked at him expectantly.

"Look, if you have an important meeting on Monday morning, do you binge drink on Sunday evening?"

"Of course not! Cannot meet my boss with a hangover when I meet him for a performance review."

"Ah! So THAT's the most important meeting you can think of."

"What else..." I started when he shushed me with an abrupt gesture.

"So then you plan to either binge on Saturday evening or limit your drinking on..."

"Binge on Saturday!"

"Yeah, thanks, just what I needed to know!" he said. 

Was that a tinge of sarcasm...well, as he so likes to say, if it was, what else is new?

"THAT is planning for the future."

"I asked you about..."

"I know. Carpe Diem. Live in the moment. So, tell me, when you ARE drinking on Saturday evening, are you worrying about the hangover you will have on Sunday morning? Or just savoring the moment?"

"What's the point worrying about the hangover when you are drinking? If you were so worried about it, you would not drink, would you?"

"And THAT is Carpe Diem! You plan for the future, fine. But you experience the present. If you only think about the tomorrow's consequences or what you lost compared to yesterday, is it of any use?"

Hmmm. Put that way, it sort of made sense. Though, whether I will remember it tomorrow...

Carpe Diem, buddy, carpe diem. Enjoy the fact that you understood it NOW!

The Physics of Me

I am sure that this chap, Nityananda, must have been a Sciences student at school and, possibly, particularly tormented by Physics, if not his Physics teacher. (You don't know the guy - the Lord of the earthly Kailasha? What stone were you living under?) I mean, going by the way he hates getting into the Physics of anything, much preferring to get into the Chemistry. Even Time, where the mind really boggles wondering about what could be the chemistry of time!

I have a sneaking sympathy for him in this. Physics! Faugh! The subject where people take up weights, ropes and pulleys, make a rat's nest out of it all and then ask YOU why the whole damn thing is not falling down. When you look at them in dumb misery, wondering why YOU should be answering for the mess THEY created, they helpfully tell you to use the Momentum Balance or some such. With not a hint of where you can buy the damn thing or whether it comes with a helpful instruction manual.

You know, Physics is the nosy-parker of all subjects. Not at all like other self respecting subjects like the chemistry and biology, which Nityananda so likes. Chemistry sticks to the small - molecules and such - and doesn't go too far in that direction either. Biology, ditto. Sticks to manageable sizes and, now that the dinosaurs are extinct, those sizes are not too large and, as for the small, once they hit the DNA, RNA and gene, and some sundry chemicals, they said 'Enough' and rested content. But Physics?

On the one hand the ruddy thing goes first to stars and star systems, then galaxies, then the Universe and, now, not content with the Universe, which supposedly should mean EVERYTHING, they go on to something called the Multiverse! God knows what next. AND, as though that were not enough, they start worrying about what they cannot see. Dark Matter, Black Holes, what have you. I ask you, is there no end to being snoopy?

So, yeah, one sort of feels 'Ok! Bother all you want about things too big for me to worry about" and starts ignoring them. AND then they start off on the small. It was all fine when they hit the atom - supposedly meaning 'not divisible further'. AND proceed to divide it. Electrons, Protons, Neutrons...and dragged in Chemistry as an accomplice too.

Even Chemistry balked when they did not stop there. I mean, come on, dividing the proton, the electron and all? Quarks, I believe. Where will they stop? And they apparently have assigned flavors to the quarks to further subdivide them. (One is sorely tempted to shove in a handful of Ghost Peppers into their mouths and say, "THIS is flavor!") Just as you are patting yourself on the back that, even if your mind is reeling, you still have not fainted, they sock you with the proposition that something can be both a particle AND a wave, at the same time. I mean, come on, that's like saying that the same person can be Jennifer Lopez and the Hulk at the same time!

First they say that nothing can travel faster than light. THEN they talk of tachyons which cannot travel slower than light. As for relativity, I have no complaints, we knew it all along. Especially when it comes to Time. Which Indian does not know that "5 minutes" means different things depending on whether you say it to the boss, your friend or a stranger?

So, yeah, I am against this dratted Physics too. Even if that means that I have to figure out how to chemically analyse Time!

Important, at last

What a boon it must be to be so sure that you are important to the rest of the world. You know, like when someone says what an ideal friend should be like, you automatically start assessing how your friends fare on that sort of scale. I mean, quite obviously they all should be worried about how they impress you, you being the center of the world and all. Why would it even cross your mind to think of whether YOU are a good enough friend?

Of course, you can adopt the 'curse' version of this same thing. Like assuming that everyone is talking about you when they talk something critical of someone. That, when they are talking about how a person is smarmy, you automatically correlate it to some action of yours in the past and start defending yourself. In that case, of course, it never crosses your mind that they could be talking of someone else. Obviously, nobody else can be important enough to be talked about when you still infest the surface of the Earth.

Though I had been spared the 'curse' version of this being important, and ought to be counting my boons, I have always regretted never being blessed with the 'boon' style of importance. Yes, people do keep spouting about counting your blessings and all but, tell me, when did it ever work for you?

Not being blessed? Well, not till some angel invented the Internet. Ever since that thing swam into my life, I have been the center of the world to all sorts of important people.

I mean, look at all those major companies - Google, Facebook, Banks, Mutual Funds - staying up all night and tripping over each other in order to wish me a 'Happy Birthday'. First thing in the morning! Not just that, they do it all year, for Diwali, for Holi, for Pongal...I tell you, I am so proud that I could burst!

And Facebook! By God, EVERY SINGLE DAY! That man Zuckerberg just cannot live without reading some post or the other from me on my Timeline! Addicted, that's what he is. So, every day, the chap pleads with me to share something. And, even when I do, he is not content. He wants a post on each of my pages, eggs me on to share tidbits from my life with him...He is such a fan of mine, and all my so-called friends in real life? They just do not realize what an amazing writer I am. It takes a genius to know one, let me tell you.

But, really, these guys can carry their admiration too far. I mean, yeah, I looked up a Smartphone, toying with the idea of buying one. But, damn it, wherever I go on the Net, they come obsequiously offering me various smartphone. I feel like a Pasha in a bespoke shop with salesmen trooping in all the time offering up goods for my approval. Sort of feels nice initially, yes, but it palls, you know. Especially when you are being shown the tenth smartphone AFTER you are done with the purchase. Spoils the mood, sort of. You start feeling that you are SO important to them and, yet, how did they miss your having finished with the purchase?

Anyway, whenever I start feeling that people are looking through me, all I have to do is log in. Immediately, I am at the center of the world!

Outrage

There is this problem with writing anything, anywhere. (Or drawing or painting or singing or...) You write the damn thing because you sort of enjoy the writing; you put it out thinking that you will not care a damn if anyone likes it, you did it for the joy of it after all; and, hello, the moment it is out you are looking up every other second to see if someone liked it, someone said something (nice, of course. You never expect anything nasty till one of those trolls come around to let you know that they exist) about it...

And, when I do it...

"Why don't I ever get anyone to read any of my posts?"

Yes, there is this other problem, this time about me. Not content with getting trolled online, I go seeking my friends so that I can get personally trolled.

"That's because you don't know the first thing about human nature."

"What do you mean? I..."

"Well, tell me, in any conversation what gets the most attention and interest? Information or gossip?"

As one of the foremost practitioners of sleeping in class, I was obviously not going to choose information, was I?

"Right, gossip! And what really counts as gossip? Telling people good things about the 'gossippee', if I may call him so? Or telling them dirty secrets about the chap?"

Was this guy an idiot? I mean, come on, who wants to listen to the good points of someone else? If people WILL spend time on doing that, they should be doing it about me. Naturally, I want someone telling me why someone else is an asshole, so that I can feel comfortably superior to him.

"Well, good things about another guy only counts as information, not gossip."

My friend looked at me with surprise.

"Ah! You know that? Surprising. Then, knowing full well that people hate information and like gossip, why the hell..."

"But I don't give information..."

"You write things that expect the reader to think. That counts as information because it is certainly not gossip."

"You mean..."

"If you wrote calling people names, now THAT would interesting reading."

"But, come on, you expect me to wake up of a morning and just call someone or the other names? How..."

"Now THAT is why you will never succeed in becoming viral. You don't know the first thing about making yourself interesting."

"So, tell me how."

"It can't be just someone. It has to be some celebrity or someone who is known to everyone in your target audience."

"But where will I get those dirty secrets to..."

"Look up the news daily and see what you can get outraged about. Some celebrity, some politician, some government official somewhere is bound to do something which you can get outraged with. And, presto..."

"That's it? I just wake up in the morning, all set to get outraged about something or the other, and look for reasons to do so?"

"In a nutshell, yes. If some actor, say, remains silent on what you think they should support, outrage about it. If someone says something in support, outrage about why they did not say it before on other issues. If someone opposes, obviously you can get enraged. Simple."

Let the World watch out. Here I come, all primed to conquer social media with my outrage!

Say Nothing - Manager

There is this interesting thing that economists love to say. "You cannot see the wood for the trees." It has a kernel of truth and meaning in it, of course. That, when you make policy for an industry, or for a country, there can be serious problems for ONE company or so. But concentrating on individual cases while making policy can end up harming the entire industry or country. The problem, though, is that it is such a lovely phrase for the hot air merchants - the 'Say Nothing, but say it in a lot of words' brigade, if you will. You see, it conveniently absolves you of the need to even be able to distinguish an oak from a shrub, while speaking wisely of the wood. So, you can spout wisely about the 'wood' with nary an idea of what composes the wood!

Managers just LOVE economics for that reason alone. Especially, the 'Say Nothing' lot. As a student, it is enough that you spout a lot of words while saying nothing. Adults also have the need to make those words sound wise while they are doing so. Ergo, you can do without the knowledge of concepts but cannot do without a stock of wise-sounding phrases and economics is such a storehouse of such wealth.

Now, the management equivalent of the 'wood' is the 'Big Picture'. You want to support the other guy's point of view? "Yes, perhaps on a day-to-day basis there may be some issues but we need to see the big picture here." You want to oppose it? "It may seem efficient to do it this way but we need to see the big picture here." The best thing, of course, is when you do not have to take sides and just say, "Does it work well when we consider the big picture?" THERE you go. The beauty of this thing is that the other guy can only oppose your view by citing specific cases and all THAT, as you well know, can be airily dismissed as the 'small' picture, so to speak. The 'Big Picture' is too big to be seen in toto, except by you, and, so, like the Emperor's New Clothes, it is seen and appreciated by everyone while not even existing!

You think it is difficult in your favorite area of today - the infotech sector and all that it has spawned? How about "Looks fine, but I think there may be scalability issues"? Or, "Will it be robust enough to handle the transaction load?" How can anyone be opposed to scalability and robustness? Just collect a few such phrases and you are all set.

I do not need to belabor the 'Team Player', 'Square peg in a round hole', 'efficient deployment of abilities' or 'right-sizing' and the rest of the wisdom of the HR arena, do I? I have written enough posts on them.

The point, though, in being a 'Say Nothing' manager is that you should play your cards well enough not to be in a position where you are expected to be responsible for DOING something. THEN you can keep sounding wise by saying a lot of wise words without ever saying anything concrete. Getting stuck with the job of actually doing something, though, can be a problem. But THAT is precisely why we have been wise enough to create those positions of 'consultant', 'adviser' and all such - mainly for those who can sound wise even if they have failed to BE wise!

And those who ARE wise and have come into these areas? Trespassers, I tell you, taking the bread from the mouths of honest 'Say Nothing' managers like us!

Say Nothing - Student

By now you know I have been the recipient of a lot of advice that has ruined my life. The one I speak of today, though, was possibly good advice which I misunderstood rather badly and, however did you guess, ruined my life as a consequence.

They told me "When you have nothing to say, say nothing." Maybe, knowing me, they should have told me the thing in full. If they had, I may have fared much better. They SHOULD have told me, "Say nothing, but say it in as many words as possible."

There is this guy I know, whose identity I shall not disclose except to say that when my parents looked into the mirror they saw his parents. HE understood the advice in full and applied it from school.

There was this time when, in a school test there was a 5 mark question asking him to write a few words about human civilization. All of us know that no adult really knows what a civilized human is really, so just imagine asking a school kid to talk about a vaster concept called human civilization. Obviously, he knew nothing but what did he say?

Human civilization is that my teachers teach me well, I study well, I write the exam well but I don't get good marks. So, my father beats me, my mother beats me and the human civilization.

It's quite likely that his teacher was either flattered by the knowledge that he thought he was being taught well; or was so moved by the sorry plight of the poor boy studying well, writing his exam well and still not getting good marks; or was terrified by the idea of giving him bad marks causing his father and mother to beat up the whole human civilization (once they determined what it was and found it, if indeed it existed anywhere). Net result was that he ended up getting 3.5 marks out of 5 for saying nothing relevant in a lot of words. (Teacher, bored with correcting test papers, just giving marks on length of answer? Nah!)

Or, indeed, the time when he was asked to write five sentences about cows in Hindi. (Puhleeze! This was in the seventies, so none of your holy cow reactions are relevant here.) Armed only with the knowledge that a cow was an animal and not a plant, he sallied forth.

Gai ek animal hai; Gai do animal hai; Gai teen animal hai; Gai chaar animal hai; Gai paanch animal hai

Totally impressed by the fact that he knew his numbers from one to five in Hindi, the teacher granted him 4.5 marks out of 5, the half mark possibly deducted for using 'animal'. Teachers, those days! They were very unforgiving of Engdi - the mirror image of Hinglish!

Me - in both cases, I'd have left a blank space in the answer sheet, sticking very closely to my limited understanding of 'Say nothing' , I'd have got bad marks, and my father and mother would have beat me and, possibly, the human civilization as well!