Wisdom by Hindsight
My grand niece, four year old JR and her father my nephew SR had this remarkable conversation during a session of watching an IPL cricket match.
Simon : Watching IPL with Josephine and she says ‘I want to be one of the cheerleaders’
Simon : Why?
Josephine : Because that’s what the girls do.
Simon : Women also play cricket. They bat, bowl, catch etc in womens’ cricket matches.
Josehphine : In those matches are men cheerleaders?
As an Indian, there are many things that I would like to say about my country, but find few who will listen to me. Shashi Tharoor, our latest political star who arrived on the scene via a career as a diplomat and a UN bureaucrat, is not like any of our run of the mill politicians. You will see why when you listen to him.
In case you are unable to view the video, please copy paste this link on your browser to view the original: http://www.ted.com/talks/shashi_tharoor.html
I wish that we could fill our parliament and our cabinet of ministers with Shashi clones.
Since writing the above post and before it could be published, Mr. Tharoor has got himself involved in a controversy with a powerful Sports persoanality of India and fun and games are being reported by all the media. Sad.
To his credit, Mr. Tharoor has handled the scandal with panache and you can see that in this blog post.
After the you know what has hit the fan, I received this story from a friend who knows well my allergy for politicians and bureaucrats. It is worth a read to remember that the more things appear to change, the more they remain the same.
There’s an old sea story in the Navy about a ship’s Captain who inspected his sailors, and afterward told the Chief Boatswain that his men smelled bad.
The Captain suggested perhaps it would help if the sailors would change underwear occasionally.
The Chief responded, “Aye, aye sir, I’ll see to it immediately!”
The Chief went straight to the sailors berth deck and announced,
“The Captain thinks you guys smell bad and wants you to change your underwear.”
He continued, “Pittman, you change with Jones, McCarthy, you change with Witkowski, and Brown, you change with Schultz.
Now “GET TO IT!”
THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS:
Someone may come along and promise “Change”, but don’t count on things smelling any better.