The Lucy Effect.

Lucy effect

Manjiree, Ranjan,  Ramesh and I had gone to see a film on Wednesday and after the film went shopping in the mall just below the multiplex where we had seen the film.

After shopping, Ranjan and Manjiree went off to get some medicines from a chemist in the mall, leaving Ramesh and me to walk at our pace to the lifts to go down to the parking level.

As we were doing just that, one matronly lady halted me in my tracks and asked me for directions to a big retailer and on learning that I was ignorant, excused herself but asked me if I was from the armed forces.  I was taken aback, but responded saying no, and I was just a civilian when she responded that my bearing and attire gave the impression of a military officer and that is why she had approached me in the first place.  In the meanwhile a gent strolled up and she introduced him as her husband and we exchanged names while shaking hands.  That took her off into a joy as she said that her brother’s name was the same as mine and asked me how old I was!

These developments may sound corny to my readers but this is exactly what and how it all happened. I simply did not get any time to think of doing anything else but to answer her machine gun style questioning.  She then asked me about which part of the country I was from and on learning that I was from the same place as she and her husband switched over to our mother tongue and for the next few minutes she told me all about her moving from Delhi to Pune, about her two daughters, about my gothra to see if I had a son of marriageable age for her younger daughter, and finally she stopped after asking why I was using a cane.  Despite my trying to get the husband to participate in the discussions, he simply enjoyed the Lucy effect on me with much bemusement!

In the meanwhile Manjiree and Ranjan landed up and on being introduced to them, she took off with Manjiree in Tamil which the former cannot understand or speak and that kind of brought things to an end but, not before the lady complained to Manjiree that her husband does not wear the kind of clothes that I was wearing despite having a wardrobe full of them!  While she was talking with Manjiree, I went to a nearby shop and found where the shop that was her destination and informed her. The two of them then tooted off with much waving and goodbyes, leaving us to find our way to the lift.

The story does not stop there.  In the car on our way back home, Ramesh simply exploded with frustration that strange women do not approach him with such abandon and wondered what he could do to become such a magnet!  I advised him to learn Tamil and to emulate a military bearing.  What other advice could I have given him? His response? That lady is abnormal. If that lady is reading this I am sure that her response would be:
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Commonsense.

commonsense

Commonsense is defined as “good sense and sound judgement in practical matters”. And there lies the rub. There are two adjectives there – ‘good’ and ‘sound’.

The minute we add adjectives like that, the whole matter becomes subjective because what is good for one need not be so for another and what is sound for one need not be sound for another.

And that is commonsense at its best.

I rest my case.

This topic was suggested by Maxi and me for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us write on the same topic every Friday.  I hope that you enjoyed my contribution to that effort.  The seven other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order,  AshokgaelikaaLin, Maxi, PadmumShackman and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!

American Sniper.

american-sniper

It was a family outing yesterday.  Manjiree and Ranjan decided that the two old bandicoots ie, yours truly and my partner in crime, Ramesh, needed to be given a treat and so off we went to see American Sniper.  It was a great outing and we completed some urgent shopping too after the movie.

I have been following  the American press about the controversy regarding whether the hero depicted was really a hero or a psychopath.  Since I have not read the book nor do I have any access to intelligent information about the Iraq campaign, I leave that aside to share my views on this film.

My friend Ramesh had not known that it was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood and was quite impressed.  He was frankly surprised that such a movie could have been produced and directed by CE as for Ramesh, CE represented a gunfighter in old Westerns. That was another icing on the cake aspect of our outing.  And despite sitting through the credits at the end of the show, none of us were familiar with any other name in the list! Despite that, to get such a favourable reaction from all of us is an indication of the inherent merit of the film.

The four of us were unanimous in our opinion on coming out after the show that it was worth our while to spend about two and a half hours of sitting in a theater to watch this movie.  We thoroughly enjoyed the experience of seeing a real life hero in action on screen.  The photography, characterisation, direction, editing and locale all meshed well together to offer a very enjoyable outing.  I have no hesitation in giving [rating=6] rating.

No Chuck, there was no popcorn but what coffee!

 

 

 

Fasting.

I personally do not fast but many Indians fast regularly and there are different types of fasts.    I do not consume any cooked food after sun set and if I feel hungry I may just eat some fruits.  Mostly, I restrict myself to just two meals a day and may have some nuts / dry fruits for a snack in between meals.

Fasting is a very integral part of the Indian way of life and members of all the religions follow their own fasting rules and regulations.

For some time now, I have been contemplating fasting for a full 24 hours during one day every week and am much enthused with what I have just found here.

When I start, which I will after I consult my doctor the next time I visit him, I shall inform my readers about what happens.

fasting

Do you fast?

Happiness, A Reality Check!

I have recently been posting about happiness that seems to be the hottest thing happening to me as many things eventually are leading to it. Either directly to my happiness or happiness to others.

My LBC post also talked about happiness of a different kind, a state of mind despite hardships which triggered off quite a few nostalgic comments, and took me some time to appreciate that small things that we take for granted in our youth become such triggers in later life.

So, a reality check was very necessary and I found exactly that in this cartoon yesterday! Please click on the image for a larger resolution.

happiness

How practical!

On the other hand, there are people out there who must find their happiness in discovering and sharing such totally useless information with others.
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Response To A Response.

Within my facebook family, I belong to a small group of people, all from an alumni group where a lot of ribbing and leg pulling goes on.

I recently had an occasion to participate in one such trail of comments. I published one cartoon photograph of a dog in a yogic position and asked two practitioners whether it was their pet. Both of them practice and preach/teach yoga.
yoga kutta

Another friend, not one of the two yogis in the group commented that it must belong to a famous yoga teacher Ramdev who is a source for much humour in the circle. When that comment appeared, I posted another cartoon of a dog wrapped in a shawl and asked in that case, this must belong to another character much lampooned by most of us bar one great supporter Shekhar.
AK dog

My friend Mukund promptly came up with this comment – “I am sure Ramana you had both pictures ready and were waiting for the Ramdev comment. Amal bit the bait faster than Shekhar”

Shekhar responded – “Ramana posted a shawl pic which means …. ha ha!” The reference being to Ramdev who once escaped from a rather embarrassing situation by wearing a burkha instead of his normal attire.

I responded – “Shekhar, clever, very clever. Actually, I could not lay my hands on one in a burkha! I now have.”
Dog-in-a-Burka--66721

This entire exchange took me back to 1969 when I was stationed for a couple of weeks in my then employer’s head office to complete a project. I had just been confirmed in my employment in the Management cadre after completing my Management Training and one particularly unpopular senior manager decided to teach me some fine aspects of management before I left the head office on my posting. This manager was very affectionately called the prawn and that should give my readers a general idea of his personality.

On the first day that I was there, I had to liaise with him to complete my own work and he asked about some letters that I had written before I had reached the office personally. On discussion, he decided that he should teach me how to write letters and demonstrated to me how corporate communication should be entered into. He pulled out a letter that he had received from a branch office, to which he had responded and the response was going out that day. He asked me to read both and I duly did. He then proceeded to dictate another letter to his secretary in my presence while asking me to listen carefully. After that dictation was complete, he said that the dictated letter was in response to the reply that he would get to the letter that was going out that day. When I asked him how he knew what that would be like, he said that was what management was. Anticipating responses to responses and being ready with further responses. I was quite amused though I could not show that to him. I told him that I was very impressed and went off to handle my own project. Two days later, he came to the room where I was working on my project to show me the response that he had received and triumphantly announced how accurate he was! Frankly while I was quite impressed with the entire story, I just could not understand why he could not have finished the matter off by eliminating the last two letters through being proactive in the first instance. I was then enlightened by some other knowledgeable colleagues that had he done that, he would be left with that much less work! Typical bureaucratic approach to problem solving!

I wish that I had been senior enough then to tell him, like I told Shekhar, “Prawn, clever, very clever!”