LIVING LIFE LIFE-SIZE (Fun in my life)

There is nothing like Living Life King Size if you are a thin, bespectacled, straight speaking, shy guy with a face that looks like Tom Hanks in Cast Away on the lonely island, while showing the happiest of emotions. You can only live it life size or better put your size (well, being an engineer pays in writing mathematically correct statements like this – but the flip side is, you would not know whether it is relevant or not to make such statement in a given context). But as the old saying goes, “Every actor will have his soap”, you can change the size of your life if either you are a well paid professional with no work or if you have your book published (I don’t know if my life size changed or not but people say it did after these two things, and I like it. So I think it must have changed).

It all happened when I was in a meeting with my team about the action plan for the Transition paradigm for project nomenclature (ok, I accept that I am exaggerating – it was just a meeting to change the name of our project as our database would not take such a long name). I got a chance to speak to my content to these people who have no other work. I lectured on for over two hours about how the people that we come across change our life and life sizes. Well, it is a different matter that only those with a tight bladder could stay awake. But it is true that people do influence us – in doing and not doing certain things, or at least fantasizing or not about certain things.

The BATMAN Chronicles

One rainy day in Pune – The Introduction

It was really cool day in Pune in the month of July. The weather is chilling and to add to that it was raining. I was coming back from office in the evening and at 6 o’clock and the light was quickly fading.

“Oh shit! Oh Shit! Man. I forgot my rain coat Man. But I think a man should be man enough to manage without it man! Anyway I think I don’t need to think about it for this drizzle man”. If it is the number of MANs in the comment that caught my attention, it was the heavy downpour being referred as drizzle that held it. It was the beginning of my acquaintance with a lazy, intelligent (well he thinks so), ‘don’t care can do anything’ man. He was coming with me that day as his car broke down. Expecting him to go back and fetch his raincoat I stopped – I thought he might be feeling embarrassed to make me wait as we met just few minutes back.(I came to know later that is a feeling that is nonexistent as far as he is concerned). But he continued on his way, without showing the slightest of inclination of going back. So I followed him. Just as we were going into the parking space – he searched his pockets for something anxiously. Going by his action I thought he must be searching for his Mobile which he gave me to keep in pocket as I was wearing a Raincoat. But before I could say anything, “Oh shit! Oh shit Man! I forgot it man, just wait for me till I come”, said he, running towards the stairs.

After waiting for some time, I thought I better go back and check what is happening. Just as I was about to go up the stairs, I saw him coming down the stairs maintaining two feet distance behind a good looking girl, of course ogling. At that moment I realized that it was not the feeling of embarrassment that stopped him from getting the rain coat but his laziness. He came out wearing his raincoat, holding the bag between his legs, in an awkward gait. There he stood for a second before entering the open area, took out from his pocket and making a weird movement of his hands wore his goggles (he later called it his style of wearing). Brown in colour, stylishly designed side legs, and dark brown colored. If I was worrying about anything apart from the wild rain, about riding a bike, it was the light. The way in which we have to go was poorly lit and was full of pits and especially in that rain you can’t even see normally even if the light is good, and here with me was a man who is not worried about wearing a rain coat but makes it a point to wear goggles before he makes an appearance in public space outside of office. I could not help but recollect the cartoon crime fighter, but in a round shape, bald head and thick bow like moustache. I tried hard to hide my feelings and keep a serious face but as if reading my mind this Mr. Batman replied “I wear goggles MAN, for protection from glare of opposite vehicles MAN!”

Embarrassed by the look on people’s faces watching us, I could muster my senses only to say “Ok!” before we moved on.

Bindu the Offender

Batman becomes restless even if there is petite delay in completion of his work, and being a connoisseur of food (again a term he uses for himself, though you may feel forced to use the word glutton, once you see him eat) he does not like any delay in serving his meal.

Mr. Bindu, though a Punjabi has a south Indian name and that too a feminine one. He says that a famous Malayali cook used to cook for their family, and his father is so impressed by her cooking that he named his only child after her. This talkative Mr. Bindu does not miss a chance to talk about how good his preparations are although the people that eat never want to agree with him. He also has a fascination towards trekking and tells about his exciting trekking adventures that sure amuse people thanks to his great narrative abilities, though nobody knows the reality about them.

Though the food served in Mr. Bindu’s canteen is not good, it is certainly cheaper than that served in any other canteen. Also it is a non-vegetarian’s paradise, as very often people find an occasional chicken saying hello to them in their pure vegetarian pulav. Being a hardcore non-veggie, Mr. Batman likes this canteen especially for this reason.

Batman is a careful spender, (he doesn’t like people, who call him a miser), and so he ensures that he always buys some vegetable food, which has high probability of non-vegetarian mix in it, as it is cheaper than the menu-card-non-veg. There are gossips that he has a comprehensive list of items that will have non-veg mix, at a given time of day. (Later I came to know that he indeed has such list and keeps on revising it taking input from others who eat there). Mr. Bindu, though is talkative is not as witty as Batty. So Batty always pulls his legs whenever he finds an opportunity and Bindu is waiting for his chance to come. He also thinks that Batman has made plans to get free non-veg from his canteen and that is why he comes to his canteen for every meals/coffee break. This he feels is the reason why Batman is able to maintain his figure (42 – 42 – 42), though he buys only veg items with lowest possible price tag that are usually not enough for daily survival.

Bindu has had enough of him when Batty announced with his group that he got three big chicken legs in his vegetable salad that day. He thought he would not let it happen again. But he knows how unorganized and careless his cooks are. Also he does not want to spoil the relations with Batman, to maintain his good image in public. (He knows very well what Batman can do to his reputation if he fights with him). So he thought he would stop him from coming to the canteen itself. He ordered the waiters, servers everyone to delay whatever Batty ordered, and inspect them thoroughly before serving it to him.

It sure changed the events. Batman was surprised to find his probability statistics turning out wrong these days and he was really worried coz it has been 3 days and 2 hours since he had eaten any flesh. So he took his time off and went to the canteen with determined mindset to find out the real reason for this. He ordered Bumpy-Chummy-Veg Delight as it was 4:15PM and it had the highest probability of having non-veg in it, about 63.4%, greater than any other dish served at that time. He cross-checked from his pocket reference about the probability again and smirked at Bindu, which Bindu returned with a mix of triumphant feeling in it.

Batty gave the order and sat down in a chair observing what was happening in the kitchen. He got a glimpse of the prepared item coming out of kitchen. He sat down satisfied. But then he found that instead of serving the food to him the waiter took it to Mr. Bindu, who was checking it for non-veg pieces. Now he understood why his estimations were going wayward. He stood up, went to the counter, while Bindu made futile efforts to hide the plate from him – pretending as if he has not noticed it, Batman pulled out a packet of expensive Swiss chocolates and said, “I have ordered for a Bumpy-Chummy-Veg Delight and I haven’t received my order till now. So I am taking this chocolate pack. If you don’t get my order in ten more minutes then I will take one more of these packets”. As Mr. Bindu was watching him in open mouthed awe Batman walked away with the pack without paying single buck for it. He shared the chocolates with us announcing them as the tokens of his victory (for first time in my association I saw him share something – I hate to say that it was also the last time). Bindu was speechless at this counter attack. But could do nothing as he cannot disclose what he was doing. It was a sweet revenge for Batty, as well as for others like me, who do not have guts to challenge the bulky, bullish Bindu.

Well this incident certainly stopped Bindu from inspecting the food being served to Batty, but not Batty snatching a packet or two of costliest snacks for free, not only when there is a bit of delay in service but also whenever he finds a non-veg piece in his dish. But for others like me – well we are content with the chocolate Batty shared with us on his first victory.

Even Bill Gates doesn’t know this…

It all started when I read the posting titled “Even Bill Gates doesn’t know this…” in a common discussion forum. It was the umpteenth time that I read the same old content of what =Rand(1,254) function does in a word document. I felt rather disgruntled at the juvenile content of the posting, more so when many of the replies were showing surprise at the so called ignorance of Mr. Gates. I was surprised that not many are thinking about why Bill Gates should know this in the first place. After all he has not coded a single line for MS Office or any product of MS in today’s market (At least ever since his makeover as a “Geek Genius” by Pam Edstrom, PR Chief of Bill Gates). In fact the advent of Windows itself, let alone Office, was very lucky and unknown for a long time to William H. Gates, while it was being developed, for he was busy managing the affairs of Microsoft by that time. (For more details you can read: Barbarians Led by Bill Gates - Marlin Eller, Pam Edstrom)

Leaving aside the bugs in Office codes and Bill Gates, one must appreciate the programming skills of the originator of this mail. He is so skillful in programming the mindset of the readers that he influences what is called the emotional reaction so successfully. Myth and Mystery have impressed people over a very long time and on most occasions we are habituated to use the emotional intelligence over rational thinking. It is emotionally satisfying to know a bug in a famous and almost foolproof application (at least for the non-developer users) and it’s more thrilling if it’s a secret mystic bug that even the ‘Original Geek’ doesn’t know. We don’t even care to think if it’s possible for our senior manager, let alone the Chairperson, to know a possible bug in the code that we write for our project, but we will be happy to proclaim the unawareness of Mr. Gates. I really doubt it if a programmer himself would remember a bug that he himself has solved.

This very behavior is the root for the world economics and stock markets – the logical versus the intuitionists. While the professionals use rational analysis, most of the small investors invest emotionally (read - what their heart or hunch says) and lose more money than they gain. Rather than analyzing the ROI, Market Cap and Area of operations etc., the emotional thinkers buy when the market is going up and sell when it’s coming down based on some advice from a so called friend/colleague, all this while not really understanding why it’s happening or where it’s going. The best thing for a small scale investor could be choosing some real performers that have a management with strong ethical values, potential for future growth, and find out the price at which it would be a good buy and try to buy it at a margin of that threshold. I know I am being too impractical by trying to predict a definite outcome of a STOCK INVESTMENT, but frankly stocks are for long term players and if you want short term gains in real life that too consistently and that too above 7%, go play Don Corleone.

The point that I am trying to make is that the thinking pattern is what that differentiates the judgment/reaction, given a similar situation to two persons. While one pattern need not necessarily be superior to other, it makes sense and adds a lot of value to adapt to rational thinking more often than not. The raising emotion may tempt me to watch Brazil vs. France but it would not help me finish this article any better. But again I may not stop cheering up for my favorite team even when they are on the verge of a defeat, for I know miracles do happen. However, in case of complex situations especially involving work or business I better put my emotions at bay and use my head instead. The bandwidth, time and energy that would have been saved for better things simply overweigh what the satisfaction of bulk mailing these bugs would give me.

Now, I am not an avid supporter of rational thinking to the extent of being stone cold. One has to use his brain to reason out the ways and his heart to decide which way, for not all things in life happen according to reason. If so there would not have been the words ‘Love’ & ‘Humanity’ in the dictionary!