Master of Big Issues

I have figured out why I have not set the world on fire, getting people to run around after me waving selfie sticks. The problem, as usual, is luck - the luck that put me, a born master of big issues, in a situation where I had only small things to do.

I find ready solutions to handling the Kashmir issue. I know exactly what is wrong with the education system, as befits a person who perpetually teetered on the edge of failure, and know how to set things right there. As for industrial policy, the fiscal deficit, curbing inflation - those are things I can solve in my sleep and would, if I can figure out a way to be drinking tea and chatting with my friends while sleeping. With all these multitudinous talents, what am I handed out? These pesky little problems that cross my office desk that my vast brain cannot stoop to finding solutions to, that's what.

You think it is easy doing these big things? I have to get into the minds of the armed forces and police in Kashmir and see their motives - how they love the idea of blinding and killing people there and switch off the inclination the moment they get posted elsewhere. I have to get into the skin of the finance minister and see how he, like Marie Antoinette, casually dismisses inflationary pressures with, "Let them eat cake." I also have to realize how the government is too stick-in-the-mud to devise individual educational philosophies for each citizen. And you casually dismiss my multitudinous achievements merely because I am unable to crawl into the mind of the chap sitting across the table from me and determine whether he is serious about asking for LIBOR + 3.75% or whether he will settle for just a 2% mark-up? You do not realize that it is just that I prefer traveling in exalted terrain.

What did you say? "Nothing is impossible to he who does not have to do it"? Or was it "The confidence of a man in his solutions to problems is in direct proportion to his confidence that he will not be called upon to implement them"? So, you think that I can be confident only about things where I can comfortably TALK about what to do and not where I have to DO them? How typical of people like you! You only know how to troll. I am NOT the 'Master of Big Issues; Loser in Small Things", I will have you know. "MOBI-LIST"? What is with you guys and acronyms?

Okay, you superior guys. Let me ask you one question. You are SO sure that you know what God wants you to do; how He wants you to behave and what He wants you to condemn in the people around you. Tell me, do you know what your spouse wants you to do; how your spouse wants you to behave; what your spouse wants you to condemn in the people around you?

I didn't hear that! What did you say?

Oh! You, too, are a Master of Big Issues?

I thought so!

What's in a name?

I never really did bother about names and, if I ever had stopped to think about it, I would probably have shrugged my shoulders and said,"What's in a name?" THAT, though, was more in my childhood than later in life.

You know, India is sort of surprising. AND it was even more so in the past. You had TV news-people who mastered the enunciation of 'Slobodan Zivojinovic', but stumbled and stuttered over 'Palaniappan Chidambaram' - so much so you would have thought that the former was from India and the latter from the outer reaches near the North Pole. But, then, sitting comfortably in the south of India, it was all as remote as though it was happening in Outer Mongolia, since Doordarshan was in Delhi, which was 'door ast' - 'far', for those who do not recognize the allusion.

When I shifted to Delhi, though, the fun started. Not immediately but around the time when the Election Ids got issued. Since the chaps came around verbally asking for information and filling the forms up themselves, the fun was not really apparent till I got the Election ID. In Hindi, the name was not bad - except for the fact that the North firmly believes that an 'an' does not belong at the end of the name and so, I was 'Chandrasekar Suresh' and not 'Chandrasekaran Suresh'. THAT, though, did I tell you, was only in Hindi. In English it got rendered as 'Chandarshakhar' AND THAT it remains there, since I did not have a year or two at my disposal to educate the concerned officials about how to spell my name.

One would really think that we people in the south, who have no surnames - only the names of our native town/village and/or our father's name as initials - are a small obscure tribe numbering in the hundreds at best, going by the fact that no government forms ever bother to specify exactly how this is to be entered in any uniform manner. So, with the expand initials in one, name and surname in another and so on and so forth, my name keeps changing from Suresh Chandrasekaran and Chandrasekaran Suresh, when it does not get a thorough make-over like Chandarshakar Suresh.

Also, there is this strange issue. I daresay that people who get knighted are far lesser than the population of people with my style of naming and, yet, it is known that they get called 'Alec' by friends and 'Sir Alec' by others - and never 'Sir Baldwin' or whatever their surname happens to be. The same, though, I am unable to drive into the minds of the same people - that I am 'Suresh' to friends and 'Mr. Suresh' to others and NOT 'Mr. Chandrasekaran', which would be my dad, who had enough people troubling him to not want my lot adding itself to the mix. Now, of course, I have a chance of things changing for the better. I'm sure P.V. Sindhu will not favor being addressed as Ms. Pusarla and will start a change of attitude. (Though, to be sure, even C.V. Raman did not manage it. Even when knighted, he was still Sir C.V. Raman and not Sir. Raman)

Now, I need to tackle a new set of issues. When I was leaving Delhi for Bangalore, my passport was near-expiry and I had it renewed in a hurry. Having stayed within the shores of this country, I have had hardly any reason to look at it till now, when it needs renewal. AND, presto, I find that, though the passport office was RENEWING a passport in the name of 'Chandrasekaran Suresh' and my form was filled in the same way, the passport I now hold is for 'Chandra Sekaran Suresh'. No doubt they took pity on my being deprived of a middle name and decided to gift me one but...

I want to reclaim my name. I find, though, that since the passport HAS been the base for my PAN Card - they too have granted me a middle name, gratis, despite, yes, my filling the form WITHOUT adding that superfluous spacebar between Chandra and Sekaran. Unfortunately, I had opted for the card with a mere 'C. Suresh' on it and, thus, I never knew that this had happened till I tried to align my Aadhar ID - which had the name the way it should be - with my PAN Card.

There I go - now I need to reclaim my name. With a choice between 'Chandarshakhar' and 'Chandra Sekaran' in two ids and with only the latest one - Aadhar - having it the right way, I do not know how it is all going to end.

So, soon you may all have to revise your opinion of what my name is...and so may I!

Do it well?

Seivana thirunda sei - Tamil Proverb

Translation(sort of) : What is worth doing is worth doing well

I would love it if, just once, there is one of these proverbs that will support me. But, no, everything that the wise have said always seems to run counter to what I want to do.

When I first heard this one about doing anything well, I was SO ecstatic. So, the time when my mom wanted to send me off to buy vegetables, I happily quoted this one at her and said,"I want to live by this proverb and since I cannot do this well, I'd rather not do it."

I thought I had the winning argument since, after all, the last time I bought some tomatoes, she took one look at them and said,"So, you paid him money and picked up all the rotten tomatoes that he  had thrown into the garbage?" Sounds more caustic in Tamil, actually - Avan vendaamnu vitterijadhai kaasu kudutthu porukkindu vandiyakkum? (Something, I bet, that SHE was told by HER mother in her day!).

So, did I win my point? NO WAY. All she told me was that it only meant that I had to do things to the best of MY ability and NOT necessarily in the best manner possible. So, I still had to go out to buy the veggies with further advice ringing in my ears - "It ALSO means that you learn from your mistakes and keep improving, not that you can always scrounge around in the garbage for vegetables, after paying the shopkeeper for the privilege." Parents!! They always find a logic to make you do what you do not want to do!

After that signal failure of the proverb to help me in any manner, you would have thought that I would abandon the advice it gave as being totally useless. I suppose I would have but some things seem to stick in my mind, as though they were coated in Fevicol, whether I like it or not.

So, yes, comes my working days, my boss used to be dancing around impatiently saying, "It is not really necessary for you to work out everything to 20 decimal accuracy. I need to give this in half-an-hour or be roasted over a low flame for days", while I was meticulously checking why the figure on the left column was 2874.99999999999, while the one on the right was 2875. To this day I think he blames me for every single white hair he has on his head though, to my knowledge, he has never yet featured in a barbecue as the center-piece because of me.

Over the years, I realized what my problem was - why I had to do as good a job as I could always. You see, the world has two types of people - those whose job is to DO and those who job is to tell how others have done. You need to get into the latter band-wagon as soon as possible - then YOU can make a nice living complaining about others not doing their jobs well and stop bothering about whether you are doing yours well. If, though, you get stuck in the first category...

It was much later in life that I did manage to reach the level that I always aspired for, from the time I heard this proverb. Since I can do NOTHING well, I DO nothing...now!

Olympian regrets

Goal of Team India at the Olympics: Rio jao. Selfies lo. Khaali haat wapas aao. What a waste of money and opportunity.

I know that there is this almost insane interest in gaining publicity at any cost. There is this intense fascination with getting something to go viral on social media that borders on obsession. What I had not realized is the lengths to which some people can go in pursuit of this obsession; the sheer callousness with which they can hurt and calumniate others for what they see as their place in the sun. So, yes, this tweet above was an education.

To be sure, there are apologists; people who see this as a bitter exposition of the truth of Indian Athletics. I cannot see this as being so, either. If it had been a statement on how India has failed to produce world-class athletes, it would have been a commentary on our own sporting infrastructure. Had it been a criticism of the ability - physical or mental or both - of our athletes, one could see it as a possible conclusion from their performances, bitterly though we may dispute those conclusions or offer the lack of sporting facilities as the reason.

But, no, it was a comment on their dedication to their sports - not merely of one or two but a sweeping character assassination of ALL the athletes in 'Team India'. With no reason for that conclusion - no stories of late-night partying the day before the competitions or athletes neglecting their practice routines or whatever - the statement almost borders on slander. To seek cheap publicity based on such a vicious statement, and one can see no other purpose served by such sweeping assertions,...suffice to say that I cannot think of leading a joyful life with a sewer for a mind.

Decency in public life is becoming a thing of the past and in no small part thanks to people like this who are more intent on coining a phrase than in checking for the legitimacy and veracity of what they say. Being controversial cannot be an end in itself; controversy always causes hurt and, when you cause hurt, it better be for a cause, else you are no more than a sadist. And when the cause is no more than publicity-seeking...

One thing people like this forget - no-one is a loser, who puts in his best efforts, no matter what the result of his efforts are. As a country, yes, India should be able to identify and hone sporting talent that can vie with the best in the world. The lack of a sporting culture and sporting infrastructure in the country does make India a loser in the arena of sports, because as a country we certainly are not putting in our best efforts.

At the individual level, each athlete who performs the best that he or she can, given the circumstances - and most, if not all, of them do - IS a winner and should be respected as such, even if his or her best  efforts on the day is not enough to win. THAT is something which would be clear to any self-respecting person.

A big part of what ails this country is precisely this. Someone, regardless of the odds against, attempts something. If he/she succeeds we are ALL too willing to take the success as our success and revel in it. If he/she fails though...it is not merely his/her fault but he/she is a duplicitous person out to cheat us of our tax money. When we have done scant little to support the success, we really have no right to revel in it; AND, when we not only do scant little but also revel in successes, then it is only right that WE accept the responsibility for the failures and do not foist it on them.

It is only when we recognize how little we ARE doing to foster success that we will develop a sporting culture in this country. As long as we rest content in blaming those who try for not succeeding, nothing can change...for the better. As for reveling in the successes - be it a Sania Mirza or a Sundar Picchai - time enough to be doing it when we AND they see the environment of this country as the prime reason FOR the success. People can succeed 'despite'; it is when they succeed 'because of' that the country has reason to feel a participant in the success.

But as long as the self-proclaimed 'opinion leaders' of this country will prefer to shoot the messenger for the message, there can be no hope. It is ironic that precisely those, who are letting the country down, are the ones who are most vociferous in complaining about others doing so.

But, then, THAT is the nature of humanity. People who love holding the mirror up to other people seldom have the honesty to look in it themselves!