Tomorrow is Holi - the festival of colors and today was Choti Holi. Let me first explain the concept of holi . In Choti(small) holi, people in a community gather around a huge pile of wood and make fire and eat snacks. Main holi is played with colors wherein people go to everyone's house, exchange colors and eat sweets. There are many mythological reasons behind this rituals but they are not important here. The concept of Holi -both choti holi and the main one are not very much appreciated by Mr. Naman. And by not appreciated, Mr. Naman dislikes them very much. At the eve before main holi Mr. Naman takes a heavy dinner, buys juices, fruits and chips and locks himself in a room. The room obviously contains either a book or a tv.
Such was not the case when Mr. Naman was a child. As a child, Mr. Naman used to organize these festivals with great care and attention. He used to organize small holi assuming a leadership role. He with his friends used to gather wood, collect money from the neighborhood to buy sweets, and snacks, assemble wood to make the fire. But all this was nothing compared to Mr. Naman's excitement for the main holi.
For the main event, Mr. Naman's preparation used to start 2 weeks in advance. He was very careful in picking up pichkari. He used to pay detailed attention to the new models available in the market carefully examining the advancements in design and technologies. Believe me, to Mr. Naman, holi was nothing less than a war of colors, everyone should be colored - that was his goal and pichkari was his weapon. The weapon that holds maximum ammunition was chosen. Therefore, he always ended up purchasing the simple bottle to hold water one as it stored maximum amount of water. Water balloons were like the grenade bombs, very effective but he rarely gave attention to them because they were cumbersome to make. But on every sight of someone else's made ballo0ns, he was quick to grab them. Colors that are used to dissolve in water were always chosen to be as strong as possible for maximum and long lasting effects.
As the saying goes - Everything is fair in war, Mr. Naman rarely hesitated to color anyone even when he was not playing like his mother in kitchen or the morning milkman or any person walking in front of his home. As a result of above, once he was chased by an young man who lifted Mr. Naman and threw him in tank full of water. In another instance his mother did not gave him the gujiyas (holi sweets) because he had colored the kitchen walls. Mr. Naman claimed that it is not fair as these sweets are made once a year but no bit of rationalization was possible.
Mr. Naman then realized that the saying is incomplete. In his opinion, it should be modified to - Everything is fair in war but so are the repercussions.
Just like in war, soldiers wear a standard uniform made to suit their interests, Mr. Naman also made a design of a jacket fitted with pichkaris with carefully designed pockets for colors, remote controlled triggers and what not. He often used to imagine himself wearing that uniform and used to call himself Holiman (in spirit of superman, spiderman etc). Such was the dream world of Mr. Naman.
So why does Mr. Naman does not play Holi anymore? One thing that Mr. Naman didnt like on the holi day was the extensive bath that he had to take to get rid of the colors. To him, these were the injuries of war and bathing was like an operation to cover the wounds and indeed it was painful to him. Slowly and slowly, bathing became a more painful event than playing colors and thus he stopped playing holi. But he still understands the mentality of the children in his community who are waiting for any opportunity to color him. He has heard that there are even bets going on who will be the first one to color him and several soldiers have taken it on them as the mission of this year's holi. So to avoid them this luxury, he locks himself in a room and waits for the festival to get over.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Chater 5
About 2-3 years ago, Mr. Naman submitted to his father's wishes of getting a normal job and began the interview cycle. One of the typical interview questions asked to him was : Where do you see yourself 5 years from now? This question just baffled Mr. Naman as he didnt knew the answer. For the first 7 interviews he tried the "I frankly dont know" answer to which he got a raised eyebrow, lips down, "silent huh" reaction and quickly followed by - "well thank you for your time. We will let you know of our decision soon" and mostly in the next day, sometimes that evening only he got a reject.
Mr. Naman could never have understood the rationale behind this question. It was not that he did not knew the trivial answer but he did not wanted to lie for some job that he never wanted in the first place. So followed Mr. Naman's experiments with the interviewer. Some of his attempts were:
Interviewer: Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
Mr. Naman: I dont know, why dont you tell me where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
And now followed the case analysis:
Case 1 - Interviewer: (Blank face), stammers something
Mr. Naman: See! Do you get it now? Do you agree that it was a dumb question?
Case 2 - Interviewer: The trivial BS!
Mr. Naman: Good for you. I do not have such concise clairvoyance.
but if Mr. Naman is not impressed, he goes like
Case 3-
Mr. Naman: So you think that you know everything about your life. Huh? You have got it all planned out. Huh? Have you considered the contingency situations? What if your wife discovers your affair with the pretty secretary sitting outside? Or what if your mother sends her awful homemade laddoos to your boss? Have you thought about that? You think that because you wear a tie, because you polish your shoes, everybody should do that.
Interviewer: What is this?
Mr. Naman: I am not finished yet.
And then to show the irony of the situation, he walks out.
When he had heard all the different answers to the above cases, he decided to increase the level of fun. In his next interview, he answered this question as
Mr. Naman: I want to be the person sitting above you in the hierarchy of the organization. Is it possible.
The above answered once backfired when Mr. Naman interviewed for a really small company and the interviewer said that he was the CEO of this company. This was unexpected by Mr. Naman and so he replied by - " So what, even Steve Jobs was fired."
Mr. Naman could never have understood the rationale behind this question. It was not that he did not knew the trivial answer but he did not wanted to lie for some job that he never wanted in the first place. So followed Mr. Naman's experiments with the interviewer. Some of his attempts were:
Interviewer: Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
Mr. Naman: I dont know, why dont you tell me where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
And now followed the case analysis:
Case 1 - Interviewer: (Blank face), stammers something
Mr. Naman: See! Do you get it now? Do you agree that it was a dumb question?
Case 2 - Interviewer: The trivial BS!
Mr. Naman: Good for you. I do not have such concise clairvoyance.
but if Mr. Naman is not impressed, he goes like
Case 3-
Mr. Naman: So you think that you know everything about your life. Huh? You have got it all planned out. Huh? Have you considered the contingency situations? What if your wife discovers your affair with the pretty secretary sitting outside? Or what if your mother sends her awful homemade laddoos to your boss? Have you thought about that? You think that because you wear a tie, because you polish your shoes, everybody should do that.
Interviewer: What is this?
Mr. Naman: I am not finished yet.
And then to show the irony of the situation, he walks out.
When he had heard all the different answers to the above cases, he decided to increase the level of fun. In his next interview, he answered this question as
Mr. Naman: I want to be the person sitting above you in the hierarchy of the organization. Is it possible.
The above answered once backfired when Mr. Naman interviewed for a really small company and the interviewer said that he was the CEO of this company. This was unexpected by Mr. Naman and so he replied by - " So what, even Steve Jobs was fired."
Friday, March 7, 2008
Chapter 4
Mr. Naman today is humming a song; a song whose name he cant remember, whose lyrics he can't remember. All he remembers is the tune and it goes something like this: teh teh tehhhh the tehnnn, th th th theeeeennnnn
And with this bare piece of information, his objective for today is to reconstruct the whole song. He has planned his schedule to focus on each syllable of tune for 15 minutes. If that does not work, he intends to remember all the songs that he has listened to in the past 4 months, and in the process memorize them to avoid such future incidents like today. And finally, if he is still unsuccessful, he will write his own lyrics matching the tune, name the song himself and an extremist in him wants him to go ahead and publish this song.
In order to accomplish his mission, he has positioned himslef in an aasaan that is most fruitful for such occasions. He is lying on his favorite sofa with head resting on sofa's one sidearm and legs hanging on the other sidearm. He had not bathed in morning and had eaten a heavy breakfast, so the conditions are optimal for him to concentrate and not move for a long time. He is gazing at the ceiling and his powers of concentration are so acute that the spiders above him are planning to file an eve-teasing suite against him.
One doesnt know this but Mr. Naman by his rigorous tapas (after all he was sitting in a yogic aasana) has realized that there are always two versions of a song for each person. The first version is the true version which is the one captured by brain upon listening the song and stored in memory. The second version is what the mouth utters (aka sings). This version varies from person to person to person and in most cases differs distinctly from the original one. To circumvent this differences in versions, mankind has invented an innovative technique known as Bathroom Singing. But mankind is cleverer than it seems. More astute human(strikethrough) beings realized that people are interested in listening to these difference and hence have marketed this simple phenomenon in a form that we commonly know as Indian Idol or American Idol. "How clever of them!" says Mr. Naman.
Having stumbled across this observation, Mr. Naman has changed his plans and now he is going to devote more time in listening to already listened songs to identify this tune. He has also realized that such a gargantuan task can not be accomplished in a day. And with this plan he has consented to the idea of meditating further in his aasana (read sleep) until his mother or the housemaid stops him from becoming a sanyasin.
And with this bare piece of information, his objective for today is to reconstruct the whole song. He has planned his schedule to focus on each syllable of tune for 15 minutes. If that does not work, he intends to remember all the songs that he has listened to in the past 4 months, and in the process memorize them to avoid such future incidents like today. And finally, if he is still unsuccessful, he will write his own lyrics matching the tune, name the song himself and an extremist in him wants him to go ahead and publish this song.
In order to accomplish his mission, he has positioned himslef in an aasaan that is most fruitful for such occasions. He is lying on his favorite sofa with head resting on sofa's one sidearm and legs hanging on the other sidearm. He had not bathed in morning and had eaten a heavy breakfast, so the conditions are optimal for him to concentrate and not move for a long time. He is gazing at the ceiling and his powers of concentration are so acute that the spiders above him are planning to file an eve-teasing suite against him.
One doesnt know this but Mr. Naman by his rigorous tapas (after all he was sitting in a yogic aasana) has realized that there are always two versions of a song for each person. The first version is the true version which is the one captured by brain upon listening the song and stored in memory. The second version is what the mouth utters (aka sings). This version varies from person to person to person and in most cases differs distinctly from the original one. To circumvent this differences in versions, mankind has invented an innovative technique known as Bathroom Singing. But mankind is cleverer than it seems. More astute human(strikethrough) beings realized that people are interested in listening to these difference and hence have marketed this simple phenomenon in a form that we commonly know as Indian Idol or American Idol. "How clever of them!" says Mr. Naman.
Having stumbled across this observation, Mr. Naman has changed his plans and now he is going to devote more time in listening to already listened songs to identify this tune. He has also realized that such a gargantuan task can not be accomplished in a day. And with this plan he has consented to the idea of meditating further in his aasana (read sleep) until his mother or the housemaid stops him from becoming a sanyasin.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Chapter 3
Today Mr. Naman came this close to knowing it all.
Earlier today morning, on his mother's insistence, Mr. Naman had gone to the nearby market to get something. He can not remember that something now, infact he can not remember most-things now. It was a bright sunny weather- sunny weather that doesnt makes you sweat but just makes your face glow. It had always amazed Mr. Naman how the Sun is able to vary its intensity everyday and multiple times in a day too. He had assumed that the answer must be due to the chemical reactions going inside the Sun. Apparently, Sun does not have much control on the reaction - it is just a apparatus tool and not any chemical catalyst. Anyways, this was not the question that absorbed Naman this morning.
He had reached the market and was making his way through the swarm of people gathered in a market to reach the appropriate shop. Gleaming Sun made him feel confident and full of energy. Dressed in a plain t-shirt, whose color now was merely a reminder that it was white in its hay-days, and black paijama whose length was exactly in between the length worn by prisoners and length of his leg, this attire was Mr. Naman's favourite but in no way adhered to the implicit understated dress code of market.
It all happened when he passed through the clocks shop. He quickly observed that the big clock hanged outside to attract customers was showing the correct time even though it was not working. In the next flash of second, his mind shouted within him - "Even a stopped clock shows correct time twice a day". His first reactions(in sequential order are) were - wow! , is it true?, how is it possible?, eh?, oh!, aah!, oho!, aha!, wow!. And suddenly he realized that he has stumbled upon some information of valuable depth. How can something which is not working at all can serve its purpose even for an instant.
His legs froze. His eyes froze. He head was bent at 62degree downwards than the horizontal and his eyes were staring at the bottom of a pole anchored on the ground standing perfectly upright.
He was thinking fast, pushing his minds in all directions to rationale his profound observation. He was searching for answers but the question was still not clear. He was certain that it was not that question whose answer is 42. Mr. Naman was sure that he has solved one half of the problem - the how part, now only thing that was required was to solve the other half - the when part. He just had to know now when does these stopped clocks will give the correct time.
He kept on staring at the pole, looking at the point at which it meets the ground. He was amused - how come less than 10% of the pole was below the ground but still it was able to support itself. Something told him that somehow clocks were connected to all this. Suddenly he realized that today was a leap day. What a strange coincidence it has been. Clocks and leap day. He started thinking about the concepts of years and months. What would have changed if we had no months, just day1,day2,day3, all the way up to day 365. It would be so easy. He couldnt help but contemplate - why would anyone make such an arbitrary calendar plan. Some months having 30 days, some having 31 days. What happened to the concepts of harmony, uniformity and balance.
But these were just passing thoughts in his mind. He was involved with the bigger question - how can he determine by looking at a not working clock and tell that whether it is showing a correct time or not. The more he thought, the more he stared and the more he stared the more he thought. Somehow that pole was trying to tell him something. And he felt it. His countenance began to change, lines on his forehead were changing from a convex mirror to concave mirror like shapes. His doubts were clearing away. Starting at the pole bottom became some sort of meditation. He was gaining knowledge. He began to smile.
He began to realize that this was the moment of enlightenment that he used to read in books. Hairs on his arms and legs stood up as if they were some antenna. He was falling into an abyss - an abyss that began at the bottom of a pole standing erect on the ground. He was this close to knowing it all. He was there - he could feel it. But just when the most crucial information was to be transferred, a guy walking on the sidewalk at which Mr. Naman was standing nudged him and that broke his concentration. His glance swayed from the pole to 1 feet right of it and that was all that was needed to break the circuit.
At first, Mr. Naman was puzzled, unable to fathom that he had missed it all because some guy had nudged him at a market sidewalk. How unusual was it - how is it possible. He turned around to look back, to look at the clock and to his horror the clock was working. He looked at his wrist watch and that was also working showing the same time. And then another person nudged him as he was standing at the middle of a crowded market sidewalk. All his ideas were shattered in an instant. Disturbed, exhausted by all the confusion, he decided to walk back home without buying what his mother had asked of him.
Earlier today morning, on his mother's insistence, Mr. Naman had gone to the nearby market to get something. He can not remember that something now, infact he can not remember most-things now. It was a bright sunny weather- sunny weather that doesnt makes you sweat but just makes your face glow. It had always amazed Mr. Naman how the Sun is able to vary its intensity everyday and multiple times in a day too. He had assumed that the answer must be due to the chemical reactions going inside the Sun. Apparently, Sun does not have much control on the reaction - it is just a apparatus tool and not any chemical catalyst. Anyways, this was not the question that absorbed Naman this morning.
He had reached the market and was making his way through the swarm of people gathered in a market to reach the appropriate shop. Gleaming Sun made him feel confident and full of energy. Dressed in a plain t-shirt, whose color now was merely a reminder that it was white in its hay-days, and black paijama whose length was exactly in between the length worn by prisoners and length of his leg, this attire was Mr. Naman's favourite but in no way adhered to the implicit understated dress code of market.
It all happened when he passed through the clocks shop. He quickly observed that the big clock hanged outside to attract customers was showing the correct time even though it was not working. In the next flash of second, his mind shouted within him - "Even a stopped clock shows correct time twice a day". His first reactions(in sequential order are) were - wow! , is it true?, how is it possible?, eh?, oh!, aah!, oho!, aha!, wow!. And suddenly he realized that he has stumbled upon some information of valuable depth. How can something which is not working at all can serve its purpose even for an instant.
His legs froze. His eyes froze. He head was bent at 62degree downwards than the horizontal and his eyes were staring at the bottom of a pole anchored on the ground standing perfectly upright.
He was thinking fast, pushing his minds in all directions to rationale his profound observation. He was searching for answers but the question was still not clear. He was certain that it was not that question whose answer is 42. Mr. Naman was sure that he has solved one half of the problem - the how part, now only thing that was required was to solve the other half - the when part. He just had to know now when does these stopped clocks will give the correct time.
He kept on staring at the pole, looking at the point at which it meets the ground. He was amused - how come less than 10% of the pole was below the ground but still it was able to support itself. Something told him that somehow clocks were connected to all this. Suddenly he realized that today was a leap day. What a strange coincidence it has been. Clocks and leap day. He started thinking about the concepts of years and months. What would have changed if we had no months, just day1,day2,day3, all the way up to day 365. It would be so easy. He couldnt help but contemplate - why would anyone make such an arbitrary calendar plan. Some months having 30 days, some having 31 days. What happened to the concepts of harmony, uniformity and balance.
But these were just passing thoughts in his mind. He was involved with the bigger question - how can he determine by looking at a not working clock and tell that whether it is showing a correct time or not. The more he thought, the more he stared and the more he stared the more he thought. Somehow that pole was trying to tell him something. And he felt it. His countenance began to change, lines on his forehead were changing from a convex mirror to concave mirror like shapes. His doubts were clearing away. Starting at the pole bottom became some sort of meditation. He was gaining knowledge. He began to smile.
He began to realize that this was the moment of enlightenment that he used to read in books. Hairs on his arms and legs stood up as if they were some antenna. He was falling into an abyss - an abyss that began at the bottom of a pole standing erect on the ground. He was this close to knowing it all. He was there - he could feel it. But just when the most crucial information was to be transferred, a guy walking on the sidewalk at which Mr. Naman was standing nudged him and that broke his concentration. His glance swayed from the pole to 1 feet right of it and that was all that was needed to break the circuit.
At first, Mr. Naman was puzzled, unable to fathom that he had missed it all because some guy had nudged him at a market sidewalk. How unusual was it - how is it possible. He turned around to look back, to look at the clock and to his horror the clock was working. He looked at his wrist watch and that was also working showing the same time. And then another person nudged him as he was standing at the middle of a crowded market sidewalk. All his ideas were shattered in an instant. Disturbed, exhausted by all the confusion, he decided to walk back home without buying what his mother had asked of him.
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