Always the best policy?

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During a particularly stormy phase in life - a phase that could be a top contender for the worst in life, but the jury is still out on that one - I met an acquaintance at a shop. Now, the bad phase was unfortunately known to a larger radius of people than I could help, and so this person was aware of the stormy goings-on.

The encounter was unexpected, and the kind that we would usually try to dodge. If either of us had spotted the other a few seconds before, we would have bolted in different directions. Anyway, we saw each other and smiled and he asked, "How're you?" A routine question, a routine answer, and we would have been on our way. However, it was not to be so.

I had always been a supporter of honesty's undisputed position as the world's best policy (whether I always practised it is a different question) even though I was never quite sure when that guideline really applied. Was honesty always the best policy? Was it a conditional statement? Were we supposed to be honest only to our close ones (and doctors and lawyers)? When to be honest? Did dishonesty cover the white lie? When to be dishonest just to be polite and nice? Being polite and nice and politically correct meant not always saying the truth. Was giving an untrue answer considered dishonesty or could it pass? Was the word dishonesty intended only for larger crimes?

The man pretty much knew what I was going through, so why lie?

So I skipped a beat, decided to be "honest" for all it was worth, shrugged and said, "Not great."

He froze for a second. Then he gathered himself, made a grimace and nodded. Everything was contained in that nod - he knew what I meant, he was sorry, he was helpless, that sort of thing.

Then he abruptly walked away. I think he was too shocked that I chose honesty that day.

What would have happened if I had just gone with a smile and "I am doing great!"?

Perhaps we would have exchanged a few more pleasantries. He would even have said to himself, "Given the conditions, she is handling herself very well." Or he may have thought I was merely trying to show a brave face. In all likelihood, he would have not thought anything of it at all. This meeting would have been an unimportant event in both our memories and would have vanished in no time. As it was, I chose to give a truthful answer, and see where it got me. That's why they invented stuff called white lies.

I maintain that hypocrisy is the greatest thing in our lives - even though we take pains to claim that we despise hypocrisy and all its forms. We cannot be "honest" for honesty's sake; we have to put on a show. That's what we call dignified / civilized / cultured / decent (look up the thesaurus) behaviour. On a normal day. A shot of untruth to keep things normal.

A hypocrite, by definition, is a person who pretends to be what he is not. And when I decided to be what I was, I scared away my acquaintance.

So, the best policy comes with a condition. It is up to us, civilized, well-mannered, well-behaved hypocrites to figure out and shape those conditions.

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What's the problem with the world?

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I'll tell you what the problem is. Switch on the TV and watch for an hour or so. Pay attention to every entertainment program, every commercial. What is the message that each of them convey?

Life is short, they say. Life is for living. Celebrate. Enjoy. Look good. Kiss. Be selfishly happy. Because there is only one life. Once in a while, donate a hundred rupees to charity.
You deserve to be happy. 
You.

Heck, I have advocated for selfish happiness, myself. I still maintain that if we don't look out for ourselves, no one else will do it for us. No one else will, is the truth. And for someone else, somewhere else, there is no one looking out for them.

It is not that we don't know of their existence. We read about them. We ache for them. We pray for them. We start hashtags for them. We light candles for them. What else can I do, we say.

Mine, Ours, Yours, Theirs - where do they all overlap? Do they, at all?

The Voices that do not speak for the Voiceless. The Hands that do not reach out to help the Fallen. The Wealth that does not bring Smiles on the face of others.

The resulting imbalance.

What can I do? My own problems...

The fact that international organizations - so many of them, at least one for each purpose, for peace, for health, for rights - had to be created to take care of the downtrodden. And even so, the lives that exist in the blind spot.

This has been said before, and this will be heard again.

So...  what happens now?

I have written this blog and got it off my chest. This thought had been weighing me down for long. I have done my bit. I can go live my life.

You have finished reading. You can heave a sigh for the unlucky people of the world. You've done your bit. Now you can go back to your living. We're done.

And that, Your Honor, is what's wrong with this world.

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We're all part of nature's infinite loop

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One begins to wonder what the purpose of this whole exercise of evolution is. It is good for us that Evolution has not gone out of fashion, but it seems to be headed somewhere and shouldn't we (as the intelligent species, rulers of the planet etc.) enquire where? And why?

Okay, life first appeared in water. Just like that. One little cell of life. Then it found its own ways to multiply and evolve and develop and mutate and climb up to the ground. And spread all over the planet. It followed Darwinian (and questionably Lamarckian) rules, so that each species could survive and reproduce. Apparently with each evolved form, it found ways to adapt the rules and modify them as per the requirement. Clearly it was embedded with an instruction set. Natural Selection. The whole goal of the process, I am told, is - to survive and reproduce. Ad Infinitum.

All is well. But where is this whole program headed? Is it a bit like a wheel rolling down the mountain, out of control?

In other words. If you know infinite loops, you will know why I am concerned. An infinite loop with no exit condition is a recipe for disaster. It will bring the whole system crashing down in no time. Oh yes, I have tonnes of experience on that front, though not exactly on the evolution scenario.

Do whatever it takes to survive and reproduce.

An infinite while loop with a million if-elseif-else conditions. The most interesting (and curious) thing is that the conditions themselves are evolving day by day as per the latest requirement, to survive and reproduce. The highly-developed genes knew exactly what to choose at any point in time, depending on the situation at that time. That was not part of the original seed program, was it? There is no chance that the tiny cell would know what to do if it were to suddenly reappear in its original form, today. It would have to learn. Which means, the instructions are evolving too.

But back to my question. What is the purpose? The survival of the fittest - to what purpose, to what end? When the fittest have survived - then what? What is it that the fittest are meant to do? Just continue to survive and reproduce?

The chicken that is being fed and fattened and kept happy has to end up on someone's plate. (Though the chicken, in all likelihood, doesn't know that.)

Unfortunately, any literature we have on the subject has been written by humans - who are guinea pigs of the experiment - and, as such, will be like the lab rat's notes on the consequence of the test it is being subjected to.

And who started the program? Who sent the wheel rolling down the mountain? Who injected that first tiny life form to this barren planet? Did Life big bang into existence out of nothing, just like this Universe itself?

Who was behind this? What was the intention? Will they be coming back to check on the results?

Should we be ready, survived and reproduced and evolved and fit to perfection, when they come?

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The World belongs to the foul-mouthed

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This happened a while ago. There was an 'official' email that was to be sent to a person I had never met. Which is nothing new, of course. I just had to make a request for a certain piece of information, and as such, it was the most mundane and ordinary mail you could think of. Sprinkle it with the adequate number of Thank yous and Pleases, and I would have sent it without a second's thought.

But a few minutes before I even composed it, someone I work with called me up and said, 'Be careful how you write. That person has a history of being offended at the slightest (in some cases, imagined) things and being rude for no reason, and has created many enemies. You wouldn't want to make a mistake.'

As a result, the email that should have gone within three minutes, went two hours later, after I bit my nails to shreds and pulled my hair out, trying to polish my single-line request so that there was nothing remotely offensive about it. The overload of Thankyous and pleases and sorrys and outpouring of infinite gratitude must have sounded like I was begging on my knees. Better be undignified than sorry, was my excuse.

Everything went smooth and our further exchanges were cordial. (Later I heard several stories about this person - with evidence - that justified my colleague's warning. Apparently, anyone who has to communicate with the person in question finds it better to fall to their knees and beg forgiveness even before they have made contact.)


Scene II. If the protagonist of the above story was around my own age, the next one is much older. If the former exploded only if there was something mildly offensive in our actions, the latter found offence even where none of it could possibly exist. We would jump backwards and ask each other, 'what exactly had I said that provoked this outburst?'

You never know whence the explosion is coming. You just know it is.


Scene III. A lady contacted us for assistance with a work. And we told her not to worry, ippa sheriyaakki tharaam. Two months later, when she sent a polite reminder, I realised that it had completed slipped down our 'list of priority tasks'. This went on a couple of times. (Every time she sent a reminder, she would begin with an apology for disrupting our busy schedules.) Finally after almost six months (in our defense, not all of them were our delays), she allowed herself to become mildly irritated, and that spurred me into action. I kicked a few ... and got the job going. She showered me with Thank yous when it was done.


The explosive ones - in other words, the crying babies - get what they need. The pushovers wait and wait and wait, and they apologise for their waiting.

As a powerful person once said, you get more things done with fear than with love. (But as someone else added, it all depends on what you want.)

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Canine Transformations

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The dogs in my neighbourhood become Nagavallis at night.

I know that statement requires some explanation, but if you are wondering who Nagavalli is, I suggest you quit reading and leave.

Yes, the dogs in question are strays - but on second thought, I am sure that part requires no explanation whatsoever. Every city and town, every village and mall, every residence and school has its own share of homeless canines yawning and curling up as they are wont to do. It's a very Indian love-for-animals-and-let-them-live thing. The yawning and curling up must have something to do with their upbringing.

Without venturing into the reason behind these domestic wild animals running amok in our streets, I would just say that the dogs in the street before my house are purring kittens during the day time. Or eager ponies, if you like - given the way they trot around the area, looking important and dutiful.

I wonder what those expatriates living in those posh apartments yonder find in them - I see them stop their cars and beckon the doggies to them, some even call them by name, and I've seen one lady going to the nearest shop to buy biscuits so that she can place one by one in their hungry mouths. You should see how the tails wag all over the place, colliding against each other and against other cars that pass by. Some drivers stop at a safe distance to watch the show.

But come nightfall, a fearsome change comes over them. (Not the drivers, the dogs.) And what do you call a person who becomes another terrifying creature at night? Yeah. You know who. (Forgive me, Lord Voldemort, Nagavalli still lives.)

One night when we were returning home, we saw our friendly neighbourhood canine wag-the-tails lounging in the middle of the road, absolutely not wagging their tails. Granted, traffic was sparse at the time, but the middle of the well-lit street wasn't exactly their living room, was it? There was no sign of yawning or curling either.

Our car approached them cautiously, but they didn't budge. We took a slight detour around them. Two of them took offence at our action. They grunted their disapproval, as though they were issuing a warning. As we passed, they lunged at the car, almost scratching it. We raced out of the scene for dear life.

The next morning, I saw them again, trotting by our gate, calm and kind and loving, waiting for their biscuit delivery persons.

I am sure there is a very, very interesting story behind their curious transformation. Another Manichitrathaazh in the making...?

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PMS is very real, my dear countrymen

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... though some people think the whole thing is as imaginary as an eight-hour labour pain.

Falling "sick" two days a month? Yeah, sure. Clearly an excuse to not do any work.

You go donate a bottle of blood and come home and take rest and eat iron-rich food etc. to make up for the loss. Women lose their blood every month (ever wonder about about the number of bottles thus lost?) and walk about and do their chores and continue as though nothing has happened. (They are expected to pretend that nothing has happened.)

Not to speak of the hormones flying all over the place when this thing starts. If you haven't experienced it, you have no idea what you're missing. A monthly journey to the edge of madness and back.

And if you haven't experienced it, better not make any comment on how PMS and the associated fuss are all in someone's head!

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Lock-up

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Low-lying clouds, threatening to close in;
Ominous, and smothering life out of life;
No one should be condemned, ever,
Even one's enemies, to this destiny.
Life confined to the tiniest space,
Imprisoned in the deepest dungeons of the mind.
Never to find an opening, nor a sliver of light;
Escape is a dream that has ceased to occur
Shuffling precariously on the edge of self-destruction...
Survival is not even an option.

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Your person(s)

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I don't know if this is important, or what the answers would mean. But I have often wondered.

If you are watching a great movie, who do you call/text to say 'you need to turn the channel on right NOW' - because you know they will enjoy it as much as you do?

If you are reading a great book, who do you recommend it to as soon as you finish reading or even while you are reading?

If you heard some astonishing news, who do you rush to inform?

If you heard that someone famous died, who do you call up to ask, 'Did you hear??'?

If you heard that someone close to you died or is ill, who do you call up to share the shock and grief?

If you have just been delivered some devastating news, who do you talk to, just to talk?

If you are ordering pizza for the night, who do you text 'Pizza for dinner!' for no reason at all?

Who gets to hear your good news first?

I know my answers. Do you?

Wait. Did you just say 'Facebook' or 'Twitter' to most of the above?

Worse, did you say 'No one'?

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