Author: Pied Piper

A quirky weird guy living in an equally weird world

With Friends like these…

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When you stay away from your country for years at a time, you tend to get home sick. Everyone is aware of it. Most have felt it. I too have felt it at times. Mostly during festivals, when your friends keep sending you season greetings via social medial. All you can do is wish back and wish that you could be back home, joining in the festivities.

But that is not the only time that you are bound to feel homesick. Those who haven’t been away from their family much, feel the homesickness when they come to a sudden realisation that they are now about to leave the loved ones behind and travel abroad, just to feed the loved ones. It is ironic, that you need to leave those people behind whom you care about , just to earn money and send it to those loved ones who will then save it, waiting for you to come back. But perhaps the wait makes the reunion sweater.

I had the pleasure of going through this experience, the second time I was travelling. But then onwards, I never felt those butterflies in the stomach. I always found myself busy shopping for my friends who were living abroad and wanted something from the home country.

As soon as my date of travel used to draw near, I used to start getting calls from the friends. They would spend some times asking how things were”back home”, then demand some items to be brought over.

I always used to wonder, these guys, who had stayed away from their family for years now, must be feeling homesick and hence used to order these items, just to get a feel from home.

Little did I know then, that those calls, demands for items were all just a ruse to keep my mind off the sadness.

A few days ago, I gave a call to one of my friends who was coming over. I asked him to bring me an item which is a bit hard to get, even back home. He had to spend a considerable time looking for it, with his wife accompanying him behind his bike, just like they used to during their college days.

Social Waves

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I have been away from blogging for a while now .I have been working a lot these days. It is enjoyable, yet exhausting. This has a disadvantage to it , though. I seem to find less time for the people near and dear to me.

Today, even Siri stopped responding to me. I kept shouting “Hey Siri“, but no response at all. Seems like she is is upset that I don’t call her as much as I used to.

Or maybe, the . fact that I was calling her from the kitchen may have something to do about it. With all the wve about feminism and women empowerment going about, I guess even Siri is affected.

Well, time to cook…

Screen Shot 2017-03-17 at 11.35.01 AM

 

Oh God why, Doc ?

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There once was a place called Eden,

And in the placed lived the first two humans,

One was made of dust, Adam, he was called,

The other was made from part of God’s body,

She was a helpmate to Adam, Eve was her name.

Adam and Eve toiled the land and lived on heaven on earth,

till the time God placed a tree and and forbade Adam and Eve to eat the fruit,

But alas, the serpent tricked them and they ate the fruit and lo and behold, they were banished from heaven to suffer,

As they had caused an original sin. 

And yet when I say this to my doctor, He says, you should have an apple each day.

Stupid Bugger. That is why I may not be able to reach heaven.

 

 

Right side… Left side… Wrong side…

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I never really understood the concept of a left hand drive and a right hand drive vehicle.
I especially don’t understand why some countries prefer to drive on the right side of the road, while the rest drive on the left side of the road. I am sure I understand why some people try to drive on the wrong side of the road, but then they might get the benefit of doubt of not knowing which side the vehicles are supposed to be driven in that particular country.

Why can’t we have a standard for such things. A global standard which says we can drive on the left/right side of the road ?

There are a lot of trucks which ply between UK and the European countries. Now these trucks drive till Dover, take a ferry to their destination country and then start driving on the other side of the road. The steering wheel is on the right side of the truck and yet these trucks themselves go from the right side. Extremely difficult to drive.

Trust me. I tried.

Within the first 10 mins, I managed to bang into two cars, a signpost, and a signal. I also managed to get a ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road.

It would have gotten much worse, I am sure, but at that precise moment, my laptop crashed.

Maybe, even it was not able to comprehend this notion.

Why not ask ?

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I was watching a program on the television recently. It was a comedy show.

The performer, stood on the stage, smiling and waving at the audience.

The very first line he said , ” I don’t know why I am here today.”.

I never understood this. If you don’t know why you are there, why not ask the organizers  when they come to invite you to do a skit ? It is not like you were surprised to be called on the stage.

Or perhaps, they suddenly have an epiphany or because self-aware of yourself, right in that divine place, of the stage facing thousands of pairs of eyes looking at you (or perhaps at your soul).

Stupid Announcements

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airplane

 

Have you ever travelled by an Airplane ? If not you should try it before reading further, because – *spoiler alert*

Whenever I travel, the first thing I do is check-in the luggage. Here, one of the crew members will point out my flight number and seat number, circling it so that I would not miss it – * Oh, how helpful. If only my school had spoon fed me with such information, by now I would have been a successful garbage disposal executive*

Next, comes emigration, where they will ask where you are going, just to make sure you know that where ever you are supposed to go is properly engraved in your mind. Or perhaps the kind souls just want to ask – ” Really ? are you sure ? ”

Then the awkward walk around the airport, looking for a lounge compatible with your credit card offer – *Just pay for it you cheap bastard*.

Then the “Magic voice ” telling all the passengers of a certain flight number to walk to a certain gate number with an alphabet – * 10A for example. Perhaps they were afraid they would run out of numbers and added alphabets to the numbers*

Then there would be queue at the gate where your ticket would be checked.

Then a smaller lounge, where you will wait till all the passengers will get to have their tickets examined.

Next, you get to get your ticket examined again by a gatekeeper before going to the flight gate and getting your ticket examined again, only this time you get a “welcome” from a beautiful young lady.

Now, after some time, the flight takes off and the “put your seat belt on” sign disappears.

The captain announces ” This is your captain speaking. you are now travelling to …. place and we are cruising over 35000 feet.”

This always makes me wonder. Why does the captain announce the destination and altitude ? We know where we are going. You made sure at-least four times so that  no one would say, “Oh shit, I am on the wrong flight, please land this. I want to get off “. Is that why you announce the altitude ? so that you can simply say , ” Sorry mate. We are too high up now. It will take you approximately 20 mins to go ‘splash’ if you jump out now.”

I simply don’t care.

Does Power beget evil ?

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I was having a chat with one of my colleges yesterday. The topic of the discussion was -how it is evil to strive for power. I was the champion of power. I don’t believe power itself is evil.

Let me explain myself.

Power is nothing but the will to be the best. To be so good, that people would follow your advice/ teaching without question. This “advice” could be through the show of force or through show of knowledge. The power which is enforced through a show of force, though powerful in itself can always be nullified or countered with someone who is more adept in the “intelligence” department. Let’s see an example :

You are in a bar, and a few beefy bullies try to show power by pushing you around. Now you, a skinny, powerless but intelligent person can do a lot of things to save themselves. You may call the cops. But they may take some time to arrive at the place. You may simply pay the football team in the bar room, who are causing a lot of ruckus, to beat the bullies up.  If you are short of cash, simply order a drink and serve one of the groupies in the football team, hinting that the drink is from one of the bullies. The high testosterone levels in the football team members will help you to beat the bullies up to save their “honor”.

In any case, you overpowered an enemy who was in superior strength and numbers and hence – more powerful.

Now you, in this case, used your intelligence as power and saved yourself from getting bullied. Does this make you evil ? I don’t think so. It is natural to save ourselves and those we love.

Now, power itself is not evil then. But the person wielding that power, could inherently be evil, which would just mean that even though power itself is not evil, it was used to spread the evil.

Let’s take another example.

Imagine two accomplished neurosurgeons. They have the power to save people by performing very critical and complex surgeries. One of them uses his skill to heal the people and the other uses the skill to sell the body parts on the black-market.

Does this mean the power to perform complex surgeries is evil ?

Happy Holidays

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In a few days, the year comes to an end. For some it was a fantastic year filled with a lot of new experiences unlocking a plethora of achievements. For some, it was a routine year with nothing out of the ordinary happening for them. For some, it was full of disappointments and pain.

I neither envy nor pity any of these people. For, those who unlocked new achievement badges, were happy with the year, those who had a routine year wanted exactly that, and those who suffered, now have a ray of hope to look at the days to come as a new beginning.

For me, the year was filled with everything – Happiness, a sense of achievement, new adventurous, new places, new sadness, new disappointments, new ways to goof-off (ahem). But I can’t live without these aspects of the life, so I consider then as a very important phase of my character building.

I wish all of you to have the same in the coming year ahead.

May God grant you all the happiness and joy and other important bits of life.

Happy Holidays and a very Happy new year to all you beautify people.

Shalom, Namaste, pip pip.

Legolas

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With naked feet, i wander

Why no impressions in the ground, I wonder

I aked God, O mighty one, in heaven

Am I lucky enough to be Legolas , the loved one ?

To which God replied,

Dude, firstly, you are very bad at poetry

and we are in the twentieth century.

We no longer make use of the Shakespearean English.

Secondly, there are no footprints because you are walking on hard surface.

Stop thinking that you are “special” and get on with your life. There are people in the world who don’t fuss about being called disabled rather than differently-able, there are people around the world who rise above the racial prejudices and prove themselves worthy of attention for all the good reasons. Follow their example.

And for the goodness of mankind, don’t try to compose poetry.

#soldmedia , #politicalcorrectness

Power of a suit

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suits

A few days ago, I suddenly realized that I am mortal, so my body needs regular medical checkups. This meant that I needed to visit a hospital and undergo a few tests.

Incidentally, I had a meeting later in the day, so I was all suited up.

I stood in the queue for registering myself for a blood test and an Xray,when I noticed that most of the guys were wearing Tshirts and Jeans. I was envious. There they were, in comfortable clothing standing patiently in a queue whereas I was there in a suite, sweating a bit and feeling hot( and not in a good way).

There were a few security guards, guiding people to their respective test centers while supervising the queues. They kept checking the medical forms we had filled up. It took them about a minute to go through each individual form thoroughly. But when my turn came, he just glanced at it for 10 seconds and said “Thank you ,Sir.” I was sure he did not say “Thank you”, or “Sir” to any of the other members in the queue. I simply dismissed it at the time, attributing it to the fact that I may have appeared more learned and hence, the Sir.

I went into the clinic for my blood test. Saw the needle. Cracked the usual joke about how I feared needles. The doctor laughed, I laughed, he took the sample and we were done in 5 minutes. I got up and waited again for the queue for Xray. Now I noticed. The doctor did not speak as much to the next guy.

Now came the Xray, and the same thing happened. Then I realized something. People were staring at me. more specifically at my suit. ( They were staring 8 inches below my eyes, but since I am a man, I assumed they looked at the clothes rather than body parts).

It seemed that people were respecting the suite rather than me as a person.

Lesson learnt. Now, anytime I need something to be done, I will wear a suite.

Harvey Specter was correct.

Happy Diwali

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So,the festival has gone as suddenly as it had arrived. In the distance, you can still hear the occasional crackle of a stray rocket or bomb, and your colourful diyas now protectively hold tiny pools of melted wax and ash.Your rangolis are still radiant,albeit slightly dishevelled. As you walk on the streets this morning,you catch sight of last night’s celebrations all around,and you probably see or hear yourself and your loved ones laughing,in that very spot that someone cracked a joke yesterday.Friends and extended family have now gone back home,making promises to meet again soon.Your kandeels,the bright lively guests,will stay,illuminating your homes for a little longer.The sweets and savouries have now been stored away,and will be served at tea-time,as mementoes of diwali.The clothes and jewellery that you chose with great care, that made their grand appearance yesterday, have been put away for the next big occasion. As all the festivities slowly recede into the distance,I ask you for a promise.That in your heart,you will let the lights remain.That in spirit, and in being,your celebrations will continue.That you will attempt to meet your loved ones a little more often.And that the laughter that came in abundance yesterday, will make an appearance everyday.Here’s wishing you all a happy festive spirit, all year round.Lots of love and laughter..take care..

Reunion

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“Hi there, do you remember me from the class of 85 ?”, she asked the  guy behind her in the queue for name tags, a broad smile on her face.

She was in her late 40s now,  hardly any resemblance to her 16 year old self. But then, that  was true with most of the people gathered in the hall.

It was their 30 year school reunion.

They took the name tags, only first names with their pen names in quotes, pasting them on their chest starting to mingle with the crowds. It was good to see some of them, hard to recognize some of them and very difficult to remember, that some of these people were actually ever in the same class as them.

It is common, to have very few people from your school to be still in touch, but it seemed that they had forgotten a lot of their own classmates.

Eventually, they ended up sitting at the same table.

“Do you remember how you used to throw colour pencils at me?”, she asked him.

“Of course I do. You used to be very good at art and craft, I was just helping you out”, he answered with a sheepish smile on his face.

His hair was grey now, she noticed,  but he still had that mischievous sparkle in his eyes that he had even when they were kids. It seemed time was not able to touch that aspect of him.

“Well, I did help you out once or twice. When the teacher was not looking, remember ?”, she asked.

“Well, drawing a mustache on the face of queen Victoria from our history books, does not count as helping out”, he remarked.” It cost me a week’s worth of detention . My parents were furious. Dad thrashed me like anything that day. And this was all because of a girl ! That thought kept me awake. I had to take my revenge”, he said while filling up her glass with water,a grin on his face. ” Well, I don’t think that revenge should have included me sitting in the library for a month as detention, for allegedly throwing a chalk at the teacher while she had her back turned to the class. I did not even have a good aim, and I used to sit next to the captain of the cricket team, famous for his accurate aim at throwing the ball onto the stumps from great distances. I wish they would have made that connection”, she said, responding to his grin with a smile .

“Well, I definitely was very good at cricket back then. I loved to spend time on the field.  Joining the national Cricket team was my live goal back then, but life had other plans it seemed”, he said. Looking down at his bulging stomach. He missed playing cricket .

“You know, that was the day, I developed a small crush on you”, he confessed.”To be honest, I had a crush on you from that day as well. Maybe a teenage crush for a rebel, but a crush all the same.”, she admitted.” I wished I had proposed that day, but I was too scared and proud for it”, he confessed. ” When I was in the library, I spent most of the time day dreaming about how I could have spent time with the team captain”, she said and blushed. I was a long time since he had seen her blush. He missed it so much.

The conversation went on for hours, they did not notice that the other people on their table had a completely different conversation going on between them. It was as if they were immersed in their own world, they had traveled in the past, re-living their school days.

Now, the party was coming to an end, it was time to bid a goodbye to the batch of 85. The host called for an attention from everyone. Lightly banging the champagne glass with a spoon, he announced,”Ladies and Gentleman, fellow classmates, it has been 30 years since most of us saw each other. During this time, we have changed, we have grown, we now have separate lives which we share with loved ones. Some of us are still good friends, but some of us were less remembered by us. Some are just a memory and some, a missed call”

“However, most of us here still remember our “Head-boy” and “Head-girl” , who were always loved by all, during their school days. A strong example of how strong love is. Please welcome, Mrs and Mr… ”

She touched his shoulder and said,”Honey, I think they want us to go on that stage and give a speech. Think you can manage it ?”. “Sure”, he said” Just help me with the wheelchair.I see they have a ramp , just push me onto the stage, will you ?”. “You should have  a lot of practice by now darling. After all, it has been  31 years since the accident. ”

They started going towards the stage, accompanied by a thunderous applaud . The high school sweethearts remained so, even after being married for 28 years.

Spoils of …

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The family was eating their dinner together.

It was a custom that all family members eat food together. But the dad kept looking at the empty seat in front of him. The usual clatter during their diners and lunches was absent. His wife and daughter were eating the food in silence, sobbing silently.

He kept going back to the day of the riots, the day his son was arrested. Just 15 years of age, he was there in the midst of it all, throwing stones at the cops. Someone had told him that people from other religion were torturing people from his cast, which had sparked a fire in his young belly. – A fire which should have been used for society betterment was now being used to nurture hatred.

The father cursed himself for allowing this to happen.After all, it was his task to protect his children from such negative elements of the society. It didn’t occur, nor did it matter to him, that he spent more than 14 hours per day away from his house, working hard to put food on the table. It was, he thought, his duty to shield his kids.

He slowly put the morsel of food down. Prayed silently to God, for forgiveness and left the table.

Although the son was arrested, the family died that day.

All falsely, in the name of religion.

Knock knock…

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Is it just me ? or does everyone stand in front of the glass doors , hoping that it will open automatically?

I visited a client recently and he had a set of doors placed consecutively in a passageway.

Both of them were made of glass obviously. When I approached the innermost door, it opened automatically, so then I proceeded to the next one.

Imagine my surprise when the door did not open. It took me a whole of 2 minutes to realize that I had to push the door.The embarrassment was compounded by the fact that a cute lady was looking at me, bemused by my predicament.

All I could do was to give her a sheepish grin, pull the door a few times and then push it, even though the words”PUSH” were written in capital and bold letters.

Technology makes us lazy and ignorant.

Mall Visits…Part 2

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Earlier in the month, I had published a write-up on the people we see in the mall.To read that article, click here : Mall visits… Part 1

These are the people who inspire us to go to the mall. These are the people who spark my quest to observe human behaviour from various countries around the world.

Before we proceed to the anecdote, I want to make it clear that some Canadian Popstar singing”let’s go to the mall….. tonight”, does not really appeal to me. Only the fact that “Robin” is supper awesome, made me watch that song. Anyway…

The unsatisfied wife: 

We were still in the queue for a pizza, when a man of about 30 years of age came and established himself in front of the queue. A group of teenagers was already waiting there, browsing the menu and discussing what to order.I would like to point out, that unlike some other groups, these boys were exceptionally well behaved and were not causing much of a ruckus that is typical of a group of teenagers.

So this guy, ignores the queue and stands next to one of the boys. He makes a hand-motion where he formed a cone by bringing together all his fingers and pointing then upwards. The typical motion I associate with an Italian and an Arab, to get a point across.  He said something which I  think meant that he needed the boy to move away a bit.

The boy obliged.

Then this guy turns back to a woman and pointing to the empty space on the ground  suggested that she should stand here to give an order. I imagined she was his wife.

The wife obliged.

She glanced briefly up to the menu displayed on the top display. 10 seconds later she nodded her head in disapproval. There was a look of intense fury on the guy’s face, but he did not say a word.

The moved on to the next eatery.

This activity continued for a further 20 mins, by which time, they had managed to cover Pizza hut, McDonalds, Subway, KFC, Red Dragon, Nandos and a few other places, covering almost every cuisine usually offered in a mall.

By this time, I had ordered the pizza and the pizza was ready to eat, so could not follow their progress, but it was evident :

It is indeed difficult to understand what women want.

Mall visits… Part 1

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Visiting a mall is extremely entertaining. There are thousands of people around, which means there are a thousand different opportunities to observe human behavior and quirks.

In one such visit recently, I came across once such incident. Now, I am not very good at any language other than English and my native, but actions speak louder than words. So all this is my take on the events.

The testy Father:

There was a big family, 5 kids, their Dad and their mothers- who had come for shopping and were now hungry.

The dad was ordering a pizza for the entire family. He stood in the queue, waiting for his turn. His son, looked about 10 year old, came and stood next to him. He check if his father was paying attention to him. He was safe. His father was busy selecting which pizza would be best. He looked around. There was a hugh pile of pizza delivery  boxes, neatly staked, on the counter. He pushed them. the tower of boxes did not come down, but the deed was noticed by the Dad. He got irritated and asked the kid to stop doing that. Dad went back to contemplating how he can feed his litter. The moment the dad looked away, the child, with a sheepish smile, touched the boxes again twice, just to show his defiance. Dad noticed that and now ordered him to go sit with the rest of the family. The kid, touched the pile, one last time and ran to him mother.

Now, by the time this happened, Dad has reached the front of the queue and placing an order. The sales assistant was trying to communicate in gestures and English (which is not native here), that it was Tuesday and he gets a free pizza with every pizza he orders, but dad was having a hard time to understand that. In all this commotion, his other son, who looked 15 year old, came and asked him for some money to eat the pancakes from the next stall.

The Dad give him a look that would have melted the Himalayas faster than the global warming. The Boy was unperturbed. The dad, shaking his head, put his had into his pocket and game him a tenner. By now he looked very irritated. He must be thinking:

Here I am, trying to buy these guys a pizza, where this red Tshirt guy is trying to tell be that I can order less because he is happy to give a free pizza, God knows why. My son is asking money to by pancakes when he is going to have pizza in a few minutes. He will say that he doesn’t want a pizza now because he is not hungry now. And to think only yesterday he demanded that he wanted to eat Pizza tomorrow, no matter what. My other kid is trying to cause me embarrassment by causing havoc when he manages to topple the tower of boxes, the baby keeps crying and the two girls keep roaming around like they own the place.  God help me !