Pulling a Fast One

It has been some time since I have expressed views on something other than emotions, life and relationships. However, today I try my hand at the latest sensation sweeping the nation.

That of pulling a fast one......... :):)

Consider the given two descriptions.

A small time farmer, a retired army truck driver……………..Someone who spent the better part of his life ridding a village of liquor menace and getting it to stand on its proverbial feet. Someone who does not have a bank account, owns perhaps one suitcase full of khadi, and sleeps at well wishers places.

Now look at someone who is a self appointed guru of Indian culture. All worries can be solved by simply breathing with thought. Knowledge notwithstanding, he can dispense off opinion on anything from economy to cancer. Who spearheads an empire turning close to 1000 crore annually and has a villa in Sweden courtesy faithful followers.

Of course I am talking about Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev respectively.

I am just trying to step into baba’s shoes for some time. A shrewd businessman, a Yadav by birth, he had everything going great, a nice business, good number of followers, and the basis of a political formation. Sometime back even I revered him for propagating the ancient Hindu way of living. Then all of a sudden he became predictable, he started talking politics. He realized just yoga cannot spearhead the business for long, you need policy as well. He picked up the oldest horse to run his political rhetoric on, corruption and black money.

His happy run was interrupted by Anna who came out of nowhere and sat on a hunger strike against corruption. His timing was perfect, rocked by scams, India Inc and India youth were desperately looking for some trust and respect to be bestowed on someone who wasn’t the ritual orange clad ascetic. This Gandhian kindled the same emotion as the real MK, courtesy age and impeccable credentials. His consequent success earned him the respect and power for which he believed and lived for. Anna became a thorn to Ramdev, which was pretty much evident by his displeasure at the appointment of father son duo for heading the Lokpal bill. Parry and counter parry went one, sometimes in front of the curtains and sometimes at the back (just guessing!).

Finally Baba decided to show Anna …that mine is bigger than yours!

So now a subset of corruption was picked up a.k.a black money. While Anna’s fast was the consequence of series of well planed but failed steps Baba is all smoke and mirrors. Anna had written to the government for the Lokpal bill, suggested a team a plan and a methodology for its implementation. Anna had done his homework well, he had a bureaucrat Kiran Bedi and a saffron counterpart (swami Agnivesh), on his team. Working together they had tried other bureaucratic routes before turning on to a strike. 

Baba on the other hand has done nothing apart from rhetoric. Does he have a plan of getting the money back, no. Is he aware about the working of global economics and finance, I doubt?Does he have a team that could bring this knowledge.....no.Baba is a lone warrior.

Even I want to get Swiss Bank loot of India back here but I am neither a veteran economist, nor a politician and I really don’t think a juvenile thought of banning higher denomination currencies will even scratch the surface of the problem.

A half naked orange clad god man fasting in India is not going to stir any diplomatic routes or generate hysteria that could be milked for India’s benefit. Au contraire the bending of the Indian government (4 senior government official to placate one man in the airport?!!!!) to a single man appeasement is going to send a wrong signal as a weak nation.

Before the strike nobody knew Anna and that was his key success factor. I read about Anna after news screens splashed him all over and I could read nothing but good.Baba however has his shares of good and bad.

So what exactly does Ramdev intend through his fasting?

Judging by the preparation for his elaborate setup it seems partly to be an exercise in showing political might. Ramdev is not going to sit on strike for one day and call it off. Government can get the crores back in India in the blink of an eye certainly not before lack of food does damage to Ramdev.

1. Middle Ground - A middle ground perhaps then? This time we could maybe get one bill, a law, or something that could outshine Lokpal. It is going to be a tough one as the Lokpal has an admirable history of repeated failure that has kind of added on to its delayed partial success.
2. Leave me Alone-The other one could some kind of understanding, of leaving Baba’s empire untouched and letting him build his might in peace. Remember Brinda Karat and bones in medicines, a failed attempt to nip a rising competitor in the bud. But this seems a long shot. If Ramdev is left alone then from Haridwar he can come to New Delhi pretty soon. And leaving religious leaders alone is scarily reminiscent of operation Bluestar and our Khalsa Sant Singh Bhindranwale
   
3. Share the Success - The last one. Share the limelight, adding a clause in existing Lokpal bill tabulation that could have a little something on black money? This way Ramdev and Anna can be on the same team yet be used on and off against or for each other.

My predictive powers are limited I will wait and watch, but the last one seems plausible. However a gut feeling says that this could be over fast and have a surprise element in it…..

PS- I am neither a believer nor a supporter of either Anna Hazare or Ramdev, I am too narcissist and selfish. I am just offering a perspective that seems to be logical!

Sex..........Age.........and Blood

When you eat something bad, you only realize it when you have gastronomic issues after some time. This time varies depending on your metabolism and the level of shit you unknowingly ingested. However the trouble you face is after a time lag, normally a day to 2 and the extent of trouble is directly proportional to the fun/ enjoyment you had. What I am saying is that you get the worst hangover, at the most inappropriate time, albeit after the best party.(isn't that the premise of the series of the cine flick, "The Hangover"

Now I am reminded of this after about a week of my recent one day visit to Chennai. My uncle had come down for a commiserating the loss of a loved one, and so had my kid sister with her. Having been in Bangalore for 7 months without seeing anybody closely my blood, I was at the level of diminishing utility of life. I called my uncle and on the spur decided to go and visit, although the situation was not really a joyous event. But I miss the company of my kid sister V...(Click Here..)

Their house had a bad feeling about itself, I could feel it the instant I walked in. What are supposed to say to an 80 year old grandmother who just lost her 84 year old husband?

I just sat there

Thankfully that moment was pretty brief, grandmother wasn't really feeling well, so she was ushered internally somewhere, and my uncle right on cue moved me to the top floor of the house that had more life.

My sister came in and without saying a word she walked to me, and sat down on my lap, her slender fingers clasping my hand. She doesn’t speak a lot and she speaks pretty softly, but now she just sat silent.

I asked her why she was here.

A smile and sad reply….

I marveled at my aunt who had done such a fine job of bringing her up.

I was pretty tired, having been up all day and traveling all night. I excused myself and was soon enough feeling the chillness of water on me (I had put some ice cubes in water; their overhead tank had fired up like a heater!). As I felt the chillness of water trickling all over me, a thought fired on.

Why is it that some kids are always good to talk to? On a generic note why is that some people are always good to hang around with? Is it blood line? Or is it a super-set of that particular subset.

There has to be causality to it, my rational mind could not work without a linear relationship and I was suddenly reminded of Philip Phulman and Northern Lights.(There is a movie on this as well , I misremember the name..)

According to him there are some universes that have souls of humans who exist outside of their body. Soul is rather a very heavy word to use, rather consider it as their essence which reacts and adapts to their moods and is visible in some manner outside of their bodies, rather than inside as in case of us homosapiens on planet Earth

This thing is called as a daemon.

And it is normally opposite to the sex of the owner and it is generally an animal that indicates the personality of the owner. Warrior kinds would have a lion as their daemon, workers as rats and mice, pretty females as birds and so on and so forth. Now these daemons react to their owner’s thoughts, sometimes before and sometimes after the thought has occurred, but rarely on cue, there is always a time lag. But the particular thing is that they can change their shape, depending on the intensity of the thought. For instance; if I have a say a leopard as my daemon and I am suddenly feeling very calm, my leopard my change into a harmless dog. This ability to change shapes however diminishes with age and as given in the book it completely ceases at puberty.

Ahh…good thought……..

So I tried to draw parallels while working the lather under my arm.

Based on my past experiences and interactions I see that young females are normally good company. They are well, true and straight. Their daemon shows clearly in their actions. So to control them and to understand them you need logic not discipline.

However with the same it seems is not true with young boys. Thus it implies to me that young boys augur well to disciple as mean of a regulating factor while younger girls to logic. If you reverse the regulating factors you end up with, lets say contrarians (non conformal is overused).Gay men, and Poonam Pandey type females.

However there is always a balance in life.

With passing age, the delight of feminine company slowly diminishes. I guess it must be to compensate for their good times earlier. (it is some not all........linearity has its own Black Swans!!). If I consider maturity as the yardstick a la Phulman type; females become more adept at concealing and layering their thoughts and actions with advancing age. To use another philosophical allegory” Their souls become dirtied with their sins”. Hence their daemon becomes opaque unreadable and an absolute nightmare to be with. On the flip side souls with sin are easy to manipulate.

Men on the other hand go the reverse way.

The lather was now being washed under the stream of lukewarm water, the ice cubes had vanished.

Hence there must be 3 filters gender, age and blood. The delight of company is in direct causal relationship with these filters. No particular precedence of any one neither any particular dominance. But to me it seems that it is always vice versa. I guess that is why young nubile females seem to prefer the company of older bald and paunchy men.

I was done with act of cleaning all the dirt on my body but my clothes needed attention. I had just one set on me.

Hence it may explain whose company that may delight you. Turn back and identify the good times you had, the company of people you enjoyed. Employ the above filters, and gauge if it is causal.

If so, is it linear?

And if it is causal and linear…………..plan future interactions accordingly.

And yeah, if all goes off well in current as well as future state get dark chocolate and thank me while you eat it!!

On a devilish note try and do it for bad ones first , the subsequent delight may be sweeter!

Weekend Diaries_Evil Policeman !!

It has been quite a long time I am scribbling this actually. 

It must be the normal curve effect, anything and everything eventually dies down and you end up somewhere in the 96 % quartile range. Try as you might, you can run but you can’t hide away from it. You can tweak the frequency and the amplitude but you can’t kill it.

This in fact was what Sirjee was telling me a couple of days back.He said"An year after MBA, I am nowhere , close to getting clarity in life.I am as confused as I was before, however I am more matured and much more wiser."

Sirjee, " You realize that you are slightly less confused than others, because you at least realize that you don't have clarity"

A pause, and then" Indeed Srikant............... indeed".(It takes balls and foresight to say "No" to an offer that is huge(not big, but huge) in financial as well as snob scales...and Sirjee has them)

Saturday morning I did not wake up, because I did not really sleep. Late night was making some cost model for a new project, that is the only way I could avoid going to office.I am no longer taken by the terms” an hours work, maybe 2”.Whenever that happens, it turns into almost 3 quarters of the day gone.

I mailed at 2 am, now that ensured that I don’t get called to office, but also left me fidgety and sleep deprived.

I met up with a friend of mine (female) this weekend. The idea was to just say hi and mall around, and perhaps shop.

Shopping………

Boy-o-boy, I deduced, it is both a noun and a verb.

By purist standards it really isn’t a noun. However if you apply the filter of gender then it becomes one……………………….. from the male perspective.

For instance, consider me as a causal indicator. I can’t shop, I don’t know how to, I can’t be bothered with it. Whatever I wear are either gifts, or what my mother or aunt deem fit for me to wear and they know or have understood what I will wear and what I wont

But for females, it is bliss to shop, and funnily they seem to have a marked penchant for footwear shopping the high heeled ones in particular. It is actually very insightful that they are able to walk into a store and select all the colors, textures, sizes and finish combination that are never ever available with the shop.

Devil and wit of flame have a funny way of lighting up.

I wanted to buy a t-shirt. I walked into one store and asked my friend to pick one for me; this is how it went

She: Some jazzy green color …………..  

Me: What I can’t wear raunchy color shades

She: Light pink……..

Me: Now look there I think you know I am not gay

She: Muted brown …………

Me: I am yet to get married and there you are picking me grandfather color clothes

She: Red …………

Me: this one is reminiscent of Pakeezah , btw any of those there in Banglore?

This seems to be the last straw. She put them all down, and picked a white T-shirt with some muted stripes, and I nodded.

“What is the fun ………if it is all white that you want to wear?  Don’t you like colors in your attire?”

“White is a powerful color and so is black. And I normally wear them both”.

“That may explain why you’re kind of on the bi-polar side. You swing from one end to the other, euphoria or gloom; it is magnified in your case". You are ….”she paused and said,”Elastic”.(Click Here...)

I laughed out again. She was good with words, and pretty adept at being deferential and scathing at the same time.

She smiled back; “Take this one, if that is what you want”.

I beckoned the attendant, and then I realized that I could get another free with that. I asked him to get a same piece.

“Are you, going to wear 2 white t shirts? She asked trifle surprised.

“I am going to wear neither, these I going to gift”…

“And for you…..”

I changed my mind.

Shaking her head, at my elastic behavior she walked away to the exit.

I paid and made out, only to be greeted by the smell of filter coffee.

So we sat down at MTRs, the smell there is very Satvic. And hunger dear is very smell dependent. I ordered in Tamil and as usual the way I speak is kind of weird so service is good.

One masala dosa, one vada and couple of jalebis later we were both sipping coffee.

MTRs in that mall had an open air section as well. I could discern a couple with a kid diagonally opposite to us loaded with bags. The mother was trying to feed the kid some tidbits from her plate but it seems the kid was in mood for colic. It (gender unknown, hence the noun description!), and was bawling its gut out.

I was trifle surprised and averted my eyes away, I had shades on, and so the mother did not realize that I was observing them.

We were done with the coffee and my friend had to leave. She normally turns into a maid, and her car into a pumpkin, well before evening.

We were making our way out, but I was curious as to why the mother had pointed at me for. Incidentally at the billing counter again, we saw them purchasing some sweets.

“I saw you pointing towards me while we were eating, is something amiss” I asked very politely. (That is verbatim)

The mother seems slightly embarrassed at my query, “ She…”,  pointing at the unusually silent kid “Was troubling a lot, and I just pointed towards you and said, if you trouble more, the police uncle sitting with the black shades will put you into prison.”

Hahahahahahah !! , I roared in laughter.

My friend also smiled, and said “Actually you look very frightening with those on”.

“What makes you think I am not”?

“You are not”, she said with finality.

Meanwhile the couple made a hasty exit not wanting to have any more conversation a purported evil policeman, who thankfully had their kid silent.

PS- I came back and took a self snap!! , evil is too powerful to be ignored :)

Belief or Wait......From Where? :)

That one statement lends itself to a myriad of interpretations.

The difference between awaiting and waiting………what is it?

Got to hand it to females, they are good with words, good with anagrams, interpreting silences, pauses, tones and even laughs. I love their company, and I seem to get along well with them. Well............some of them :)

I was posed this question today, on a call, with a female. Imagination is allowed to take control if ………you do plan to read ahead. 

What do we await?

We await happiness, we “await” for good things. “Awaiting” is always with hope. We “await” for a good word from the boss. We await luck, we await arrival of a friend, and we “await”, the next trip to family. You see, “awaiting” is always in the positive sense. Never is the anticipated outcome expected to derive anything other than a smile, a laugh or a sense of contentment.

However we wait for the cooker to give its quick whistles signaling the meals is ready. We wait for the heater to warm up the water, we wait for the serpentine queue of metal boxes to move, we wait for a firang to understand that 2+2 = 2X2 = 4.We wait for the sermon from some wise guy to get over.

That was some quick thinking I could give on the call. This elicited a laugh. It was genuine; so it was I think the right thing to say. The devil as I am, I could resist a golden opportunity to score some brownie points, “So my dear, it was this smile that I was awaiting for, not waiting, hope you can understand”.

"I think I believe you Srikant".

Damm that’s mushy, I don’t like mush. It makes me feel uncomfortable.

Time to hit back……..(a swat ..........needs a swat................ a hug......... necessitates a reciprocating hug that sweeps off the feet and intellect .............needs a bit of wit in response!)

"Well that is good, but dear, belief you know is very dicey. It is satisfying no doubt about it, a little bit frightening and a lot demanding. What scores among these actually depends on where the belief comes from"

"Where does it come from, what do you mean?"

"Well belief in someone/something can come from two places, either from the head or from the heart. It is the source of this belief that is important rather than the belief itself."

"Huh?!"

"Well, you see when there is a heart belief, it is irrational, subjective and a lot dense and utterly unpredictable. But on the positive side it stays , it does not depend on one action or activity, it is not transient but lasting. For example, you pick up a fight with say your mother (I heard females do that a lot, irrespective of age!), but you know that when things calm down, she would believe you, stand by you, support in what you want, or whatever you did.

But when, belief comes from the head, it is rationally driven and very objective.However on the flip side, it is transient. You may not trust the belief always, it comes and goes. One action it springs, another it disappears.

So, tell me if you do believe me, which btw is dangerous, for you never believe a guy who is in the business of hustling, but that’s where we are not going today. Where we are ........actually is to know where this belief comes from?"

Long silence………I am becoming good with them, so I stretched it longer……But, I knew the response, in fact I was willing to bet on to a strip dance by me in the middle of Garuda mall on a Saturday.I even knew the exact phrasing.

"Well, here it is both …I guess".

Bingo!! No strip dance, but that I already knew.

However I did not anticipate, a sudden post script, to the above non binary response.

"Well ............right now it is heart".

Damm, I spilled my rather hot tea…..for this I did not expect.

The silence this time was uncomfortable and I did not want to stretch it.

"So, is it shopping again for today"(females love to talk about shopping ....anytime!!)

"Yea, got to get something for another social event" a hurried response.

"Good for you, catch up with you later then".

"Yea we will do that".

So if you have read this long, on a Saturday, tell me……………

Is there nothing you await........................ ???????????!!!!!!!

Or better still……….. Do you wait, or rather do you await for the weekend, do you wait or await for the Monday morning. And irrespective of the “a” do you believe in whatever “ing” you have, that is do you believe in whatever is it  you wait or await, and if so do you believe it from your heart or your head.

Ponder on…if desired…. Else scotch is always there, if the outcomes to the above thoughts are not merry….. Ho…….. Ho………. Ho…….. !!