Heights and falls

Sometime back I met a very interesting person.....we talked essentially work but as it always happens, it was occassionally intercepted with some "off the record" and general talk as well. We discussed a lot of things but one thing that stayed with me was a statement which he made.."The result or pain of a fall depends not on the land where u fall but on the height from where u fall"... For a moment, I really couldnt figure out what is he trying to say, he kind of read through my perplexed eyes and remarked....I am referring to the vagaries of life and the weird trajectory it takes... I couldnt help but think about it throughout my ride back....Long time back, Mom had made a similar remark.Poverty doesnt hurt per se, but being rich and then turning poor hurts..(though that time, me-a typical rebellious teenager, couldnt bother less about it) I mean, the whole problem in life is that we do not go through a constant linear state of being....at times we see so much happiness that we start believing that this is steady state and then as always happens, the fall happens...n then the status quo changes, bringing with it pain and suffering...inadvertently with the thought somewhere at the back of our mind...Shit! how things have changed... Always, it happpens....we hardly say...Shit...how things are...We always say....Shit..how things have become....its the delta we talk about and the effect is always dependent on the delta...not on the absolute stuff.... Which brings us to a hypothetical, rather absurd thought....Should we rather be in an average bad state of being rather than sporadic states of really bad times peppered with intermittent flashes of joy....???

Memories from School....

Being slightly good in your scorecards is a huge advantage during your childhood, where the score or rank in the exams is a kind of single appraisal point. And it was due to that I always managed to get unscathed though at times I felt very guilty when some of my friends’ parents chided their children for this…and through the corners of my eyes, I could always see them using the choicest of words for me in their minds

Childhood was awesome fun and we were real pranksters and naughty. Right from sneaking a small binocular in my bag (Mom had brought it for me, least aware of the use it would be subsequently put to) to use it for the common good of peeking into the girl’s common room to reciting sections of some porn magazine to a very attentive class (obv when the teacher wasn’t present), we were a bunch of real naughty guys. While there were many such incidents till class X, here are some which I often get nostalgic about.

• Aaja meri gaadi mai baith ja- This was Ritesh at his best. He had a huge crush on this girl, 3 years our junior and one fine day we were driving back in his Ambassador when we see this girl, going infront of us. We go near her, stop the car, open the door and play the then famous Baba Sehgal’s ”Aaja meri gaadi mai baith ja..aaja meri gaadi mai baith ja”. Needless to say, we had a tough time apologizing to the principal the next day.
• The blade and the ass: this was what was supposed to be total harmless fun but went nasty. There was this new guy, a boarder who had joined our class. Now in the background of the typical dayscholar Vs boarder rivalry, we knew there would be something today. So, a blade was put in the chair where he was supposed to sit. And unfortunately the blade cut through and made way right in some unsolicited territory. While no major harm was done, it was bad enough for the class to again get suspended.
• Alex and Co love for tadi (local liquor) : this was particularly amusing. Alex and some of his friends had this local liquor called Tadi in one of our picnics and developed a fondness for it. Given its resemblance to Limca, they could easily bribe the canteen guy to procure it, bottle in Limca and give it to them, which they could easily sip after classes. What happened post being caught was anybody’s imagination.
• Chirania’s condom collection- people have weird fantasies. Chiru had this really weird collection of condoms which he kept meticulously arranged in a photo-album, with the condom pasted on the right flap and its description in the left. (He never got to use any). Now the funniest part is that in one of the box room raids, it got caught and in the dinner hall that night it was really really amusing to have the Vice Principal holding the album, flicking it and saying,”So this is the source of Chirania’s inspiration”
• Rendering a teacher unconscious- this I must say was over doing things. We wanted a particular prefect to accompany us to the class picnic. As always happens, the class teacher assigned a different one. Big deal, we went with the designated teacher, made him smell something (forgetting what’s it called), he became unconscious, we put him in a mattress, dumped him in a corner and carried him back to the hostel. No prizes for guessing that the class was suspended the next day.
• The Chaos in Chemistry labs- we always looked forward to Chemistry Lab classes. We tried our hands at everything, broke as many test tubes as we could, threw mild acids at each other blazers (ruining them) and what not. The theory classes were no better actually, with all kinds of noices, crackers, seven seas smells etc

Breasts@KFC

Yesterday me and Vittal were standing at KFC waiting for our turn to order...Next to us a mid aged lady says to the lady in the counter... "Give me a breast"!!! Me thought,"One more"!!!! Probably Vittal was thinking the same...both of us were smiling.... Food for thought- What would be the reaction of the counter lady if i said,"Give me a breast"

Perils of Straight-jacketed thought

I was with some friends last night and amidst all the usual "kya babies hai, bby roads r so bad, pata nahin bonus kitna aayega..etc etc..", there was this incident which was told to me by a friend of mine. What he essentially was saying taht for people who are educated and well-off, the typical"hum do humare do" might not really be a good idea and it was actually an interesting thought. In this context, if we read it with the Financial Times Article on November 15, 2006 "Engaging India: Demographic Dividend or Disaster", it indeed is food for profound IM. Before I further dwell into the topic, lets attempt to understand the background in which the idea was propagated. I think, though not sure that this hum do humare do came into being to educate masses about the virtues of a small family in the background of abject poverty in which indian junta at large stayed. However those were the days when the human capital thought was not really the in-thing and knowledge capital, much less the concept of knowledge economy, was simply not present. Circa, 21st century and suddenly people are being thought of as the source of capital, as the harbinger of wealth to nations and not an albatross slowing the speed of a nation trying to speed to posperity. In this context, this FT article is particularly interesting. What the article essentially does is blast India's propaganda of showcasing its prosperity as derived from its demographics without doing a deep-dive into it. The whole thought of demographics driven knowledge economy etc etc, is applicable not based on demographics alone but on the demographic profile. Having a population of 1Bn plus is not a virtue in itself, having a substantial portion of it which is educated, learned and shifts the economy from subsistence agriculture to industry/services is the driver behind it. Now comes this hum do humare do....The lower strata of the economy (using Prof Prhalad's words-The Destitutes) do still produce kids in hoardes, while the rest are producing much lesser...one two....maybe none...And it doesnt take much grey matter to make out that posterity of destitutes are much less likely to be educated and add to the knowledge capital than that of the aspirants, climbers or the rest. I am not saying its impossible, I am not talking of exceptional geniuses etc, I am talking in general. A kid from an educated family is much more likely to grow up well groomed, well educated and add much more value to himself and in this process to the economy and the society and that of a very poor person. And what happens if the growth rates in these two sections are very different. In the long run, the profile will change, for worse of course. Another factor, which I think is imporant in this aspect is the coming of women in the workforce. I have come across a couple of females who have decided to marry but not have kids at all, given that it is difficult to balance job with kids. If this trends continue and more and more ladies join the fray, it does not take much grey matter to analyze what will it do to the overall demographic profile... Think abt all these. Should we blindly follow "hum do humare do"? The nation requires a particular demographic profile and for that, we are the consituents of the soceity have different roles. Let me attempt to make what should be the expectations from each of the constitutents in the greater national interest: Government: Encourage people in the right demographic bracket to have more kids. Think about it, if an educated person has more kids, not only will he contribute more to the economy in the long run; in the short run, it will also mark some shift from consumption expenditure to investment expenditure (and the latter is always more desirable in the long run). Eg: he will spend less on holidaying and partying out and spend more on educating his children. The Government may also give tax benefits for qualified professionals having more than 2 kids, it can be something like a step wise incentive scheme...something like 100 bps reduction in the maxmimum marignal personal tax rate for every kid above 2. So if u have 3 kids, u pay 29% tax, if u have 4, something like 28%. Employers & Society: Facilitate the process of raising more kids. Offices should have nurseries, care-taking maids etc. They should offer some aphrosidiac snacks. Society can reward people in the right bracket having the maximum number of kids (subject to a upper cut-off) as the value creators in the society award or somethig like that..There are so many things that can be done. We, the people: Simple, for your nation, have more babies and now since u cant bank on your ability of having twins, triplets etc, and also since you want to keep the ratio of your productive/for pleasure sex constant, have more sex. Its the call of the nation.