Back to school

Life is full of ironies, but in all probability, the school(s) where we spent a significant part of our growing up years, comes on the top of the list. There is hardly anybody i know who doesn’t want to relive those years, yet, if god came in front of us right now and said he could do it for us, most of us would shy way. Why do i have a feeling that exams and tests have got something significant to do with this sudden change of mind? If the same god gave the option of ‘editing’ out some portion of the school days that one could relive, i am sure more people would be game. Anyways, after more than a dozen years of leaving school, another phase of my life has started where i again have to be associated with them. My son has started going to school. Although it is just play school for now, i don’t see much of a difference except that they don’t have tests and exams. So, in short, that’s the part of schooling that i would like to relive.

I don’t remember most part of my kindergarten days or primary school days; hence, it is a wonderful experience to live it through my son. I was looking forward to a place close by where he could go, have some fun, period. I was dead against sending him to one of those ‘hi-fi’ places where they claim to make the kids smarter than the parents by the year end and have facilities that would put a 5 star hotel to shame. Alas, that was not meant to be. It is simply amazing how play schools these days manage to grab you by the collar and shake you up to make you feel that this decision could make or break my son’s life.

“Sir, we believe that this is the most important stage of your son’s life”. How stupid of me. All this while i was thinking the most important stage of one’s life was marriage; maybe even board exams to a certain extent, but play school? Please give me a break.

“Sir, this is their first exposure to a world outside of family and hence, it is very important that they go to the right place. Here at ‘xyz’ we have a very scientific method of teaching which ensures that they pick up all essential life skills, social skills, communication skills etc. Our curriculum includes Yoga and Taekwondo”. Impressive! That’s exactly what i want for my son. Living in Gurgaon, these are very essential life skills for a 2 year old. Considering all the dust, pollution, road rage deaths, corruption and spiralling crime graph, nothing could be more useful for my son than Yoga and Taekwando. After listening in detail about the scientific teaching methodology and the various skills he will be picking up, i have a faint feeling that he could take up my job next year after the two weeks of domain training in my company.

Nevertheless, in the end, the proud father who had gone with his tail erect that he will not succumb to any kind of emotional blackmail tactics and will put his son only in a small and simple playschool, came back home quietly with his tail between his legs. It was time to prepare for my son’s first day at one of the most prominent play schools in the city.

With advance apologies about the comparison, the first day of his school reminded me of the last time i had gone to a poultry market to buy chicken. Anxious parents were waiting around in the reception area and the designated teachers were coming one by one to pick up one or two of the toddlers at a time and take them to their ‘settling rooms’. The similarity could not have been more apt. Just as the butcher looks into the cage to find the right chicken of the right weight, the teachers were looking around for the kids whose first day it was. As they came nearer, the chickens would start to cry out aloud. Oops, did i say chicken? I meant children. They would then ‘catch hold’ of one of the chickens and lift it and that chicken would cry out for its life. Oops, did i again say chicken? I really meant children. As heart wrenching as it is to see the chicken getting slaughtered and skinned, you just can’t give in to that emotion when you think of how mouth watering it will be once it is cooked. The only solace is that the teacher tells you that your son will be fine in two or three days and you sincerely hope she knows what she is talking about.

In the initial two or three days, the toddlers are kept inside for about an hour and a half and then sent back in the same pattern as they were taken inside. A couple of teachers would bring them two at a time and hand them over to the parents. Just as the kids reached the reception and saw their parents, another round of loud wailing starts of. It is amazing how most of them think alike. In between the loud sobs, one dialogue is common – “I don’t want to come here again waaaaaaaaaaa”

Mission 2 – bring him back to school the next day. This is one of those instances you realise the acute business mentality your 2 year old has. On any other day, my son would happily go anywhere or with anybody if enticed by the promise of a chocolate or ice cream, but on this day, nothing on earth can convince him to go back there. It is as if he is well aware of the trade off and is ready to sacrifice things he loves most. Again, with a heavy heart, it is back to the chicken shop again.

It has been two weeks now, and damn, the teacher sure knew what she was talking about. He has settled now and is happy to go to school. As luck would have it, these days i have the luxury of being able to pick him up from school and drive him back home, and very honestly, this fifteen minutes drive is the best part of my day. It is such an unexplainably pleasurable experience to hear from him what he did at school that day. The conversation is all the more interesting because he is still some way away from being able to make up complex sentences; hence, the conversations are simple, innocent and unadulterated.

We are now gearing up for our first PTM which is to happen in a few days. That will be another story to tell.

Fully Automatic

This is the story of Sheikh Washing Machine bin Abdul Aziz Al Sasural (henceforth called ‘Sheikh’, due to word limitations for this article). Loosely translated, it means - The great washing machine bought by my in-laws from Saudi a few donkeys’ ears back. It had endeared a long and arduous journey from Riyadh to Delhi via Timbuktu and stood the trials of time (read approximately 15 years). Sheikh came into my family a few months back when we (my wife and me) were thinking out loud about our plans to buy a washing machine due to a maid crisis, in front of my in laws. Sheikh was stationed in their bathroom, unused. Well, not exactly unused, but I don’t think doubling up as a bathroom stand for shampoos, conditioners and other cleaning paraphernalia qualifies as utilization of a washing machine. Hence, Sheikh was duly transported to our home and occupied its place of pride in our bathroom and we looked at each other and smiled thinking that all our problems were solved. Too soon.

Though a senior citizen, Sheikh has everything you could wish for. He’s fully automatic, he’s front loading, he has a provision for hot water, and best of all, he has only 2 rotating knobs and 2 buttons (one for power and the other for taking in water from the pipe) for operational ease of use. In effect, all the various functions that he is supposed to do, starting from time set washing, rinsing, drying and draining, happens automatically based on the correct combination of settings on the two knobs. Could it be any simpler?

“Papa, do you have the user manual for this? I guess it’s better to understand the functions first before trying.”
“No Beta, we misplaced the manual during shifting. Don’t worry though. Just put the clothes in, press these two buttons and turn the left knob to ‘10’ and relax”
“Ok, sounds simple. What about the right knob? What does it do and when should we use it?”
“Oh, that is a useless knob. It doesn’t do anything much. We never used it, so don’t bother about it.”
“Uh, ok”

Next day morning I declare to wifey that I am going to do the laundry today and she can relax. I stuff the clothes into Sheikh, throw in lavish amounts of detergent, close the hatch, press the two buttons and turn the left knob to ‘10’. I can hear water gurgling as Sheikh takes in water from the pipe. Vroom and Sheikh comes to life and the drum starts rotating. I smile, admiring my smartness and go out to enjoy the daily newspaper. 20 minutes later I come back expecting to take the clothes out of Sheikh and hang it up in the clothesline for drying. Sheikh is silent. The rotating knob has stopped a few millimeters short of its destination and the hatch is still locked, preventing me from taking out the clothes.

I fiddled around with the knob and upon getting no response, I did the two most commonly used engineering resurrection procedures known to man under the circumstances – bang it from all sides and if that doesn’t work, kick it from all sides. Still no luck. Since we were getting late for office, i called up Papa and appraised him of the situation. He assured that he would come over later during the day and help take out the clothes that Sheikh had gobbled. He called me up later and explained that the left knob had a tendency to stop short before rinsing and drying. When it does that, somebody is supposed to slightly nudge the knob forward and Sheikh will do the rinsing. Once rinsing is over, Sheikh will again stop humming and somebody needs to adjust the placement of the pipe that drains out the water and Sheikh will drain it out and subsequently dry the clothes and unlock the hatch. Viola! It’s that simple. I could almost hear his tone saying “These kids of this generation have no patience at all”.

After the first debacle, we didn’t use Sheikh again on a weekday, simply because we realized that we just didn’t have the time to sit around with Sheikh and help him do our laundry. Weekends were another story. Once the clothes were in, we had to prioritize who needed our attention more – my 19 month old son who’s busy thinking up the next activity that can increase our blood pressure or Sheikh who would stop humming and wait for one of us to go and help him be ‘automatic’. We had enough. A few weeks later, I saw an advertisement of an exchange offer on washing machines and brought it to the attention of my Home Ministry (read wife). After much deliberation, we put forward the proposal in front of the House (read in-laws). They were shocked! How could we even think of exchanging Sheikh? Yes, he was old and yes he needed a little bit of nudging and manual intervention and assistance once in a while to be able to be ‘fully automatic’, but nevertheless, he still works fine. Decision - If we didn’t want him, we could return it to them and buy another one of our own. We decided to wait for the upcoming festive season for a good deal and keep Sheikh with us until then. We realized that no other washing machine could live peacefully in their house as long as Sheikh was alive. Wrong again.

A month back, my brother-in-law (stays with my parents-in-law) got married. Two weeks after the marriage, he and his spouse went on a major shopping spree and guess what they bought first – a brand spanking new washing machine! Upon casually mentioning that they could have taken Sheikh from us, he said “Ah no. It’s too old and complicated”! Gulp. We looked at Papa. “Does he ever listen to anything we say? But anyways, the new one is quite nice”!

Sheikh is being fully utilized these days. First row-shampoos; second row-conditioners; third row-detergent and brushes. The drum is our laundry bag. And who does the laundry, you may ask? Well, we have 2 fully automatic souls who do it in turns without any manual intervention, and are much more efficient than Sheikh– me and my wife!

The not so funny Sunny ride

Summer vacations were times of great fun. It was the time to make endless plans, try out new things and see new places. This memorable day dates back to the summer just after I had finished my 11th standard. My friend, Raghu, and I had great plans for the vacation, and were eagerly looking forward for the holidays to put our plans into action. But of all the plans, there was one that we were really excited about. We got goose bumps whenever we thought about it, and a chill ran down our spine every time we thought of consequences if our parents came to know.

“Dear God, please make me a pilot”
“Please also get my parents to gift me a Kinetic Honda”
“Also, is there any chance that you can get Ms. Cutie on the second bench to have a crush on me? Pleeeease?”
“God, if you think I am being unreasonable on the third one, just fulfill the first two and I’ll take care of the third myself. Thank you in advance, dear God”
That was my standard wish list to the almighty every day. I was among the unfortunate few who stayed so close to my school that if my teacher shouted “Arundeep!!!” a little extra hard, my mom would pop up in school the next minute asking; “What did you do now?” This uncomfortable proximity ensured that my parents never felt the need to provide me with any conventional modes of conveyance to go to school. My dad used to drop me in the morning and I would walk back home in the evening. This was very irritating, considering the fact that my friends who came to school in their two wheelers were the subject of envious looks from all quarters, including Ms.Cutie’s.

While none of my friends were ‘legally’ allowed to ride two wheelers, cops took a lenient view of students riding automatic scooterettes. For those who are not familiar with that term, scooterettes are those puny underpowered two wheelers that manufactures try and sell in the garb of ‘unbelievable mileage’. If you ask me, I wouldn’t want to be caught dead in one, forget be seen riding one. My radio controlled toy car could go faster that one of those things. Scooterettes were for the boys. Men rode Kinetic Hondas. It was faster, more stylish and the ‘Ferrari’ of automatic two wheelers at that time. Needless to say, parents of most boys my age had nightmares of a big black Kinetic Honda zooming into them and whisking away their precious kids. And since it was not a scooterette, they took solace in the arms of the law for keeping their kids’s pleas at bay.

Our plan was simple and foolproof, or so we thought. We were in the middle of our summer vacation were parents were a bit lenient about where you were the whole day; a common friend’s elder sister had a Kinetic Honda; she was going out of town for a week; there was a nice beach about 10 kilometers from our place; and Raghu’s home did not have a phone. If i could ask for a better coincidence of events, I would have asked to find my board exam question papers in my letter box three months before the exam. So, we finalized the date, told our parents that we would be in each other’s homes and arranged with the common friend to pick up the scooter in the morning and drop it back by evening. I would ride on the way to the beach and Raghu would ride on the way back. We were so thrilled and couldn’t wait for that day to come.

The day arrived. We met at a common place and proceeded to the common friend’s house to pick the scooter. We couldn’t stop giggling and feeling excited the whole while. The anticipation of enjoying the feeling of wind in your hair, overtaking minions on crawling scooterettes and having a ball of a time was getting into our head. We reached his place and he opened the door:

“Hey dudes, nice to see you guys here, what a pleasant surprise?”
“Surprise??? Dude, we came to pick up the Kinetic Honda and go to the beach, remember?”
“Oh shucks man. I completely forgot about and dad took that to office today”
“What the !@#$? Didn’t we tell you well in advance of the plan? You’d agreed to keep it ready for us you !@#&^% @#$ !@# *&^%$ )(*&^@#$%^&*()!!!”
“Chill guys, I am really sorry. It completely skipped off my mind. Wait, let me think. Maybe I can help you guys. I have another spare two wheeler which dad otherwise uses. Would you care for that?”
“Which one is it?”
“A Bajaj Sunny”
If it was a Bollywood movie, right now was the time for the earth to shake, the sky to go dark, the lighting to come crashing down and the hero to say “Naheeeeeeeeee! Keh do ki yeh jhoot hai! Keh do ki yeh sab ek sapna hai! Keh do ki tum mazak kar rahe ho!”

“Are you kidding us? A Sunny? Why don’t we take a tricycle, we’ll still have some respect left! Come on man!”
“I am really sorry guys, but what can I do now?”

This was the moment of truth. We couldn’t go back home since we had told that we would be out for the whole day and coming back early would raise eyebrows. We didn’t have enough money to wander about the whole day pointlessly and there were no malls at that time. Both of us sat down on the stairs in front of the house with our face in our hands, only looking up to see that bright red Sunny in the garage. It almost felt as if it was mocking us. This was just not happening!


We looked at the Sunny, looked at each other and shook our heads left to right in unison. After some time we looked at the watch, looked at the Sunny and looked at each other.

“Give us the keys”

I kicked the starter pedal once. Nothing. I kicked it again and it made a sound similar to how human’s gargle. I kicked it a third time and it roared to life, literally. I revved the accelerator and the whole thing shook like a leaf in the wind but made so much noise that would have put a Ferrari to shame.

“You sure this is going to take us to the beach and back in one piece?”
“Why not man? My dad uses it everyday”
“Well yeah, considering he’s in the Air Force, he must be using this to race the fighters!”
“Come on man, it’s not so bad. Go ahead, have fun. I’ll see you guys in the evening”
“Ok Raghu, hop on. Let’s hope this turns out to be a slightly less embarrassing experience than I expect it to be”

Wikipedia describes Sunny as a 60cc scooterette, with a 3.5 litre fuel tank capacity, capable of carrying a ‘payload’ (it must be a sick joke to use the term which is generally used in the context of satellite launch vehicles and missiles) of upto 120kg and can achieve a maximum speed of – hold your breath – 50kmph! While I was very lightly built, Raghu more than made up for it by being the hunk that he was. Between us, we were precariously close to the maximum prescribed ‘payload’ of the Sunny. Five minutes into the ride we realized that the only way this thing was ever going to achieve its maximum speed was if we lifted it and threw it. The accelerator was twisted to its maximum point and far from how a Kinetic Honda would have behaved under the circumstances, we were covering centimeters, not kilometers, per hour.

Science says light travels faster than sound which enables you to see before you hear. We proved this wrong. The sound of our Sunny preceded us at every twist and turn where we found people waiting in anticipation and craning their necks to see what was coming. The only things that we overtook were electricity poles and coconut trees. After what seemed like an eternity, god heard our prayers and we came to a downward slope where I believe we managed to reach near about the maximum speed of the Sunny, but our happiness was short lived. As in life, the downward slope was followed by an upward climb and this is where our embarrassment peaked. We climbed 1/4th of the steep with the momentum we had gained from coming down the slope, but quickly and steadily the speed dropped and pretty soon we were two dumbos sitting in an inclined position on a stationary two wheeler which was just making noise and emitting smoke. If it had not been a friend’s scooterette, we would have dumped it then and there and made our way back on foot, but we had to take it back, so we pushed. Many such twists, turns and climbs later, we reached the beach with strained muscles, bruised egos and our self esteem scarred for life.
What, with walking with the Sunny most of the way, we reached the beach well beyond our planned time. We didn’t have time for anything else that we planned since we knew that the return journey was going to be equally arduous and time consuming. We gobbled some lunch, drank a bottle of soft drink each and set out on our journey back home.

The journey back home turned out to be much more pleasant because we knew what was in store. We anticipated where the Sunny would give up and we would have to push and where we could roll it down a slope and feel the wind in our hair. We had animated races with people on bicycles, chickens, and stray dogs trotting beside us. Invariably, most of them managed to beat us, but it didn’t seem so bad now, in fact, we were enjoying it. By the time we reached our destination we were exhausted and just longed to take a shower and crash out.

“Oh, hi guys. How was the trip? Hope you had fun. Sorry I couldn’t join you”

Raghu could kill him by doing pretty much nothing more than just sitting on him, but we couldn’t that to our friend.

“Dude, don’t ever, ever, give out this piece of junk to even your enemies. Even they deserve better”
“Why? What happened? Didn’t it take you to the beach?”
“No, we took it to the beach. It didn’t want to come”
We left him with the keys and a perplexed look on his face.

Raghu and myself parted ways towards our homes soon after and when I reached home, my mom asked:
“I was worried when you got late. What happened? Did you not get an auto back from Raghu’s place?”
“No Ma, I took a lift from an uncle on a Sunny. Interesting ride it was”
“Hmm, I heard from Sheela aunty that it’s a safe ‘bike’ and it’s way cheaper than a Kinetic Honda. I was thinking I’ll get you one” !!!

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”

Bundle of Joy

There are events in everybody’s life that come unexpected, but one can still be prepared. And then there are events that are completely expected, so much so that you might know the exact date of occurrence, but you are still not fully prepared. Yeah right; if it was two months back I would have given a high fiver to those of you who said “exams”, but as I recently discovered, there are more things in life than exams that can give you sleepless nights, literally, and the worst part is that you’ll never know whether you’ve passed or failed in your effort until after a couple of decades.

For starters, Junior (let’s call him that for the time being), showed no signs of coming out even after the expected date. My meticulous contingency Plans A, B, C and D would have easily made me eligible for a direct entry to US Secret Services; the 4 different routes from my home to the hospital along with the specific times of the day when each route would be ideal had been finalized after many trial runs. A neighbor’s car was booked as a backup, my in-laws were on standby and colleagues alerted that I would dash out anytime. So, I am not really sure whether I was relieved that we could drive down to the hospital leisurely or utterly dismayed that our trip to the hospital was so devoid of any drama when the doctor said “You guys come in whenever it’s convenient and let’s get it done with”!

I had always thought that being in the presence of beautiful people alleviated any pain and suffering that you were going through. Well, my wife seemed to disagree. The cute junior doctor trying to explain things to the suddenly very attentive, interested and curious husband seemed to have flushed out some never heard off before hormones in her. She gave me her trademark one eyebrow raised stare while she was wheeled inside the OT for delivery and I knew very well what that look meant – “Don’t you dare flirt around with any of the staff, Mister, else don’t even dream of coming anywhere in the vicinity of Junior for a long time”!

To cut a long story short, Junior came into the world, or rather, a swanky labor room to the sounds of his mother screaming at the top of her voice which was further drowned by the metallica belting out of VH1 on the 42 inch plasma. Junior did not cry on arrival, giving us some really anxious moments and unfortunately, we lived in the dark era of primeval medical science where the wonder drug called “All is well” had not been launched. Hence, the doctors had to use traditional methods to make him cry. His first proper recital after a few hours brought in much needed relief, but ever since that, thou shan’t knowth what peace meanth!

I had always felt it to be highly unfair that paternity leave is only for a couple of days while maternity leave extends for a few months and my wife repeatedly points it out to me with a sneer “Its proportional to the effort that you’ve put in the whole process”. Objection overruled. Case closed.

Every day is a discovery. I am in the process of perfecting the most discreet ways of taking ‘power naps’ in office, the only glitch being that I’ve not yet mastered the art of waking up from it. The last time I sat in an aircraft and the engines started was the first time I appreciated the marvel of engineering in making such big pieces of machinery so silent and noiseless. I despised clearing my daily household garbage which I have now volunteered to do in return for, well, let me just say, not being asked to do certain other things. But all that said, nothing compares to the absolute, unadulterated and purest form of happiness that wells up inside when I see that elusive smile, or when he looks into my eyes and tries to express something, or when he grabs my finger. Every materialistic thing ceases to be important in front of him. Above all the bunch of emotions that we go through every day, is the most important one of all - the intimidating responsibility that we have at hand in shaping him up to be a good human being; someone who is adored by his friends, relatives and the society alike. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

Dedicated to my Mom and Dad

A Dil Transplant for Dilli

The Commonwealth Games is just around the corner and the excitement in Delhi is reaching a fever pitch, and why shouldn’t it? After all, Delhi is going to represent the whole nation in playing host to a deluge of dignitaries, athletes, sportsmen, tourists, diplomats and politicians from across the globe. The flyovers are done; work on most of the planned Metro routes is on track; construction of the games village and the various venues are in full swing, however, the high and mighty stakeholders seem to have suddenly woken up to another problem that threatens to tarnish our nation’s image – how to change the attitude of the city’s residents towards their civic responsibilities?

Spearheaded by our Hon Union Home Minister and ably seconded by Delhi’s Chief Minister, the KPIs are as crisp and clear as it could be:
• To make the city’s motorists respect and obey traffic rules, at least basic ones like stopping at red lights and not going on the wrong side of the road, if not more ‘complicated’ ones like over speeding, rash driving and considering the road as their ancestral property.
• To subtly inform the quintessential Delhi driver without hurting his fragile ego that he is neither 007, nor Batman, or for that matter Rajnikanth. His car is not a Ferrari and even if it is, none of Delhi’s roads are German Autobahns. He does not necessarily have to get into fist fights in the middle of the road, leave alone kill fellow motorists at the slightest of provocations.
• To educate the city’s residents to reduce the use of expletives in their everyday lingo, since, not every outsider is intelligent enough to grasp the warmth and affection that emanates from the foul words which add spice to everyday conversation.
• To be self aware of who you are and who your father is rather than shouting “Do you know who I am?” and “Do you know who my father is?” to anyone who dares to stop him from following his free will.

Okay, Okay, the last one is my own, but I swear the rest are from recent newspapers. Obviously, the Home Minister’s comments on trying to make Delhi ‘less rude’ and more friendly has not amused the guy on the street; his instant reaction being “ BC woh kaun hota hai bolne wala ki Dilli rude hai. Hum tax dete hai tho road hamari hai BC; gaadi hum apne paison se khareedte hai tho hum apni marzi se chalayenge !@#$%^ “ ; Very valid point indeed, my friend. I wonder how the Government missed this perspective though!

Before my Delhite friends and colleagues start firing their salvos and before the non Delhite starts poking fun of his Delhi counterpart, let me mention that Delhi just happens to be in the crosshairs because of the upcoming games. I can assure you that we are not dealing with the attitude and behavior of people of one lone geography. Delhi, of all places, is a cultural melting pot and an amazing city which has got the capacity to make a Gujju, a Bong, a Mallu or a Bihari, feel absolutely at home. Delhi’s culture is an amalgamation of cultures from almost every state in the country and the responsibility to maintain its dignity lies on everybody who comes into this wonderful city seeking greener pastures and opportunities and hence, the problem is not about a single city or its residents. Disturbingly, the root cause of the problem lies much closer to home. It lies inside each one of us.
It is my feeling that as a society, we are becoming more and more selfish, impatient and intolerant with scant regard and respect for other human beings around. We have taken the adage “Time is money” too much to heart and are always on the lookout for shortcuts and I am not talking about just the roads here. What we don’t realize is that each time we take a shortcut and feel jubilant about it, we are weakening the moral and civic fabric that we are supposed to hand over to the generations to come. Every time we pay a bribe, break a traffic rule, honk somebody out of the way, abuse and bully people weaker than us, take advantage of helpless fellow beings or refuse to admit and apologize for a mistake of ours because of our inflated egos, just stop for a moment and think - are we acting like a human being who is supposed to be the Supreme Being in this universe thanks to his ability to think and act?

Agreed, most of us are nothing like the people about whom we are talking about, but there might be people whom we know who fit the bill. So, next time they act irresponsibly, do everybody a favor and let it be known to them that as a responsible friend/ relative/ colleague, you do not think highly of their latest exploit. To those of you who do not even have anybody in their social or professional circles who match the description, Congratulations! We need more of your kinds to take our great nation beyond the next threshold of progress, prosperity, mutual respect and harmony.

“If each man or woman could understand that every other human life is as full of sorrows, or joys, or base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own . . . how much kinder, how much gentler he would be.”
William Allen White (1868-1944)
Iconic American Newspaper Editor

The Mian at the junction

I see him every working day. He stands there at the same spot. He is regular and punctual and goes about doing his ‘job’ sincerely. I don’t know whether he ‘works’ on weekends because I don’t have to go that way during weekends. I didn’t think much about him when I saw him for the first time. But I saw him the next day, and the next day and the next and I have got so used to seeing him that whenever I reach that junction and someone’s blocking my line of sight, I crane my neck and look around to check whether he’s there or not, much to the irritation of my wife who thinks I am ogling at other girls. Now, before I let your thoughts go wild about my fascination for a ‘he’, let me clarify.

My daily morning trip to office takes me through a few major intersections of the city. I don’t recall the faces of all the traffic policemen who man each one of those junctions, even though, unconsciously, I see them every day. I do remember an old traffic police man who is posted at a junction near to a school and I have seen many a times, the awe with which little kids look at him and gather around him like a flock of ducklings and he keeps checking their count like a worried mother duck. And when he feels that quite a few of them have gathered, the superman police uncle walks into the middle of the road and raises his hands on both sides to stop the inconsiderate traffic and the kids tumble over to the other side. Other than him I don’t recall any other traffic policeman whom I ‘meet’ everyday, except of course, that silly fellow who challaned me for jumping a red light. I can pick him out from a battalion of his species any day.

But ‘he’ is different from all of them. He stands alongside a traffic policeman in the middle of a major intersection and helps manage the traffic. He looks like he would be in his forties and has an obvious paunch. He wears his religious cap and civilian clothes…wait a second…Religious cap and civilian clothes and manages traffic??? That’s what caught my attention about this ‘duty bound’ Miyan. The first day I saw him assisting the policeman while engaging him in a friendly chat and breaking into smiles every now and then, I thought he must be a friend of the cop and they must have met up after a long time. But it happened again the next day, only this time, the cop was a different guy. I guess nobody can blame me now for my interest, or rather, inquisitiveness about this Miyan at the junction. I have always wanted to find out why he was doing what he was doing and many times I have contemplated on walking upto him and asking him who he is. But on second thoughts, reason prevailed over curiosity.

One lazy Saturday evening some train of thought took me to that Miyan. Again the urge rose in me to explore the identity of that Miyan. While I was still thinking about strategies to successfully undertake “Operation Miyan Identification”, a flash of thought struck me. Let’s say for argument sake that I come to know who he is; but what after that. In case the reason for him being there turns out to be less interesting than what I had envisaged it to be, I would be disappointed. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if I involved more minds and came out with myriad possibilities of who he could be and what he could be doing there? And hence began my small project and the results, as expected, were very interesting.

“Koi pagal hoga yaar”; “Must be a cop who hates uniform”; “Maybe he’s from an NGO or a social worker”; “Maybe he lost a near or dear one in that junction”; “Could be some criminal sentenced to a term of social service”

Human thought process is sometimes unpredictable and very fascinating. A simple Miyan in civilian clothes assisting traffic turned out be everything from a lunatic to a convict to a respectable social worker. Even though it was interesting to collect these beads of thought, the social worker possibility struck me as being pretty close to reality because I was reminded of a “Traffic Baba” in Noida. Sector 18 in Noida is where ‘Noidans’ flock whenever they get free time. In the midst of all the snazzy cars and glitzy showrooms, a nondescript old man wearing a white cap, a white flowing robe which has turned brown because of the dust and smoke, can be spotted slowly walking in between the vehicles which have stopped at a signal. He hangs two large placards on his neck with one facing front and one facing back. The placard neatly lists down the most common traffic rules and precautions that we follow, or rather, we don’t. He also has a hand held microphone with a speaker with which he ensures that he gets his message across in case someone wants to look the other way..

People and local media reports say that he is from a well to do family and does this part time because of his heightened sense of responsibility to society. Whoever he may be, I have seen even the toughest and the most rowdy looking motorists relenting to his pleas when he comes beside them and requests once, twice, thrice and as many times as he can, in a tone which comes close to begging, to either buckle up or wear a helmet or stop behind the white line. He is least bothered about the sneers and taunts that some ‘normal’ mortals pass about him. Nothing stops him from doing his rounds of the traffic signal everyday and getting rebuked by many, just to ensure that roads are safer for everybody using it.

Whenever I think of people like the Miyan and the Traffic Baba, I feel a vacuum in my heart. I have read a zillion cases of people starting cancer foundations because they lost a near or dear one to cancer, of people plunging into charities because of some tragedy. Is it necessary that a tragedy has to trigger our sense of responsibility to our society? I don’t subscribe to a general feeling that to be socially responsible has to do with starting an NGO or donating millions to a cause. Putting a piece of waste into a dustbin is social responsibility, switching off computers when not in use is social responsibility, following traffic rules, standing up for a legitimate cause, giving and taking respect and a million other trivial actions such as these amount to us being socially responsible.

As long as we consider the Miyan at the junction and Traffic Baba as lunatics and convicts, I guess we have a long way to go before we can sleep peacefully without any fear of an impending crime or injustice that may victimize us.

My Kaamwali bai's appraisal

A few days back when I went back home from office and opened the door, I was in for a shock! The house seemed to have been ransacked! I braced myself and held my helmet tight in my fist to counter any ruffians still lurking around the corners. But our TV was still there…and so was our DVD player. Then what the hell was missing? Clothes!!! For God sake, who on earth would take pains to break in into a house and steal some clothes? What has this world come to? Wait a moment…I can see my clothes…some of them neatly folded up and some others hanging pretty on the cloth rungs. Somewhere in my head a bell rang that it was no thief or miscreant. It was just my kaamwali bai’s handiwork. A shameless grin escaped my lips when I realized that we were so accustomed to such an unsystematic and disorderly way of living that seeing things in their rightful places seemed like a miracle.

But I was still wondering as to why our maid had undertaken this “Safai Abhiyan” in our house. I mean, nobody’s complaining and this is exactly what she was paid to do as per our initial ‘agreement’, but still, she’s never done it till today on her own unless we’ve specifically told her to do it. So why today? Anyways, my curiosity had to wait for some more time till my roomies came and I couldn’t wait to see the expressions on their faces when they saw their rooms all spic and span. And when they finally came, I had a good laugh seeing their reactions and a greater laugh at their frustration because they, just like me, couldn’t find a dozen items, which, till the same morning used to adorn a place of pride on our beds and every night when we went to sleep we resembled Egyptian mummies with all our worldly possessions placed around us so that we could rest in peace.

All the initial hula bulla over, my roomies dropped the bomb. Our maid had asked for her monthly payment that morning and was also hinting at getting a possible raise from the next month!

Welcome to reality. Its appraisal time!!!

Even though our maid doesn’t have any appraisal forms to fill up, no reporting manager to report to and definitely no reviewer to cross check any discrepancy, the fact still remained that we had to appraise her and believe me, it was going to be tough. An easy way out would be to act as if we didn’t even get the hint and hope that she doesn’t ask for a raise again. But then, in today’s world where getting a good maid is tougher than getting an engineer or an M.B.A, how long can we manage to hold her back. Not that she is an exceptional maid to let go off and neither has she often gone out of her way to conduct ‘Safai Abhiyans’ on her own, but still, she was good enough for us. And more often than not, being good enough is much better than being exceptional. After all, how often do you get maids with whom you felt comfortable enough to leave your house keys with and that too, right in the first month of employment?

I am pretty sure that any sane person in the corporate world would shudder even at the thought of having ‘good enough’ employees and not exceptional employees. I agree that exceptional employees perform exceptionally well, produce exceptional results and become hot property among any top management exceptionally fast. But corporate history has enough instances to show that exceptional employees have exceptional expectations, are exceptionally difficult to satisfy and more often than not, grow much bigger than the organization they work for and ultimately become the proverbial shark in the fish tank. But does that mean that exceptional employees should be discouraged. No! Never! An organization needs all kinds of employees for a healthy working environment. As much as they need a hen that lays golden eggs for a month, they need normal hens that lay normal eggs all their life. So, what am I trying to arrive at? What has it got to do with appraisals? Very rightly asked…

Dear everybody. Deny as much as you want, but appraisal time is comparison time. Employees compare their bosses, bosses compare their employees, bosses compare themselves and employees compare themselves. And as if that all this ‘Intra-Company’ comparison was not enough, there are ‘Inter company’ comparisons galore. I’ve got nothing against comparisons. In fact, I am all for it because that is one of the most important ways of assessing performance, but, comparison can be a double edged sword if done illogically and without proper understanding. Simply put, you can’t compare a donkey with a horse and vice-versa and I beg to differ with anybody who says that a Horse is a much superior animal to a Donkey, because, what each of them do best, can be done only by them. Welcome to that time of the year when most companies do the mistake of under-feeding their normal egg laying hens while over-feeding the golden egg laying ones and ‘good enough’ employees expect to get the same treatment as ‘exceptional’ ones.

Whenever the festival of Holi or Diwali is around the corner, various ‘concerned’ government departments and other organizations come out with the slogan – “Lets celebrate a happy, colorful and safe Holi/Diwali”. Extending that tone of anticipation and apprehension, let me take this opportunity to wish every body a fair and happy appraisal.


*All characters in this article are purely fictitious. Any resemblance to anybody living or dead is purely coincidental ;-)