Patience: Life is a journey not a destination. What we do tomorrow is direct or an indirect implication of what we did today, yesterday, or even a year ago.So, it’s about time that I slow down a bit, leave the rat race, and enjoy things for what they are.

Power napping: Watching TV at our house can sometimes lead to arguments between us. No, we don’t fight over the remote; on the contrary, it’s Manu’s refusal to accept my erratic sleeping habbit. It’s normal for me to slip in and out of power naps, while watching the news, soap operas, or even spine-chilling thrillers.

Be choosy about who and how to help.

Give credit to others when it’s due, but then again give some to yourself also.

A colleague once described me:”Miss Bold and Beautiful, but the only thing that needs to be in place is her hair!”

But out of all, but what I detest most about corporate e-mail is:

• ASAP: You believe in it, others ignore it
• The Wolf Phenomenon: Boss ignores your e-mail because you mail 20 times a day
• Forced recipients: If it is there, might as well (ab)use it
• Ignorance is bliss: Read it before you ask for it, again!
• E-mail or snail mail: I send, but you don’t get, really?
• To each its own: Why write the e-mail message in the subject
• E-mail not chat: Do you spell? Why use ROFL, LoL, AFAIK (as far as I know), u, pls, gr8!
• Black is beautiful: It’s e-mail, not graffiti

Got some of your own?

This happened earlier this month, when I was at the LIC office to pay our premium. Being bad at memorizing numbers, I’ve inculcated a habit of writing them down, which is exactly what I had done that day. When my turn came, I handed the slip with the policy numbers to the teller. He quickly punched in the first set of numbers, confirmed the policy details, took the money and generated the receipt. Nice and smooth, so I thought.

This is when Mr. Murphy stepped in. To make it simpler for the teller, I told him to just change the last digit in the first policy to get the second. But , a second later, the teller told me that the second policy had some other name. I requested him to check once again, but to no avail. So I told him not to deposit the money, and left the office fuming at the teller because I was convinced that I had written down the number correctly. I decided to come back the following weekend after reconfirming the number, still perplexed as to whether the teller couldn’t understand my handwriting and my vocal prompts .

Not wanting to rely on my handwriting again, I took an old receipt that had the policy details printed on it. I was convinced that this time round, there won’t be any problem, and I’d be finally able to pay t5he premium. As my turn came, the teller told me that they wouldn’t accept any payments as they closed cash transactions at noon. As per my understanding, the teller remains open till 12:30, that’s why I reached the office at least 20 minutes in advance.

I used the female charm to make them make an exception and accept the premium. I was told to wait for five minutes as the they were having problems connecting to server that processes out-station payments. So I waited, then I waited some more, then some, and finally when my patience ran out, I affixed a fake smile on my face and asked what seemed to be the problem. I was told that the server usually never goes down, but that day it did. Why? Because Mr. Murphy wanted it to.

On my third visit to the LIC office, I found the server still not responding, and an employee suggested that paying cash wasn’t a good idea anyways. She suggested that I give a check as it would be much simpler. This made absolute sense, but left me wondering why didn’t anyone tell this to me on my two previous visits. Once again, I left the LIC office without paying the premium.

I was determined to accomplish this mundane task in my fourth visit so took a signed check from Manu, I would just have to fill in the amount and drop the check at the counter. Simple, isn’t it, so I thought. But soon, I was once again cursing, not the LIC staff but myself.

As the lady manning the teller started banging the keyboard, I couldn’t help but congratulate myself for a job finally done. The printing of a receipt signals the end of a transaction, and when I saw mine get printed, I was so sure that now nothing could go wrong. But Murphy said that when things have to go wrong, they will. As the teller rechecked the receipt, she noticed that the amount that I had filled in was wrong. Now I would have to wait for my bank to dishonor the check, only then could I make a fresh payment.

Frustrated to the brink of madness, I was ready to pull my hair out when I realized that I being the joint account holder of which the check was, could correct the amount. The staff told me that there still existed a slight chance of the check being dishonored. If this did happen, I would once again have to come to the LIC office and redo the process, which I am hoping doesn’t happen, of course Murphy willing.

Manu convinced me into watching this show, which he has watched off and on for almost three years.

While reporting rapes, thefts and murders, the show’s anchor Raghavendra puts in so much drama and emotion while presenting, that one can’t help but laugh even as he unravels heinous crimes one by one.

To use an analogy, the anchor’s on-camera movements are sudden and forced, quite like to those of a jackhammer, who shakes violently between commercial breaks. His dialog delivery is also something to hear and not read about.  Eventually, the viewer is stranded far away from the premise.

Crime Reporter reminds me of a plot from an episode of Jaspal Bhatti’s TV series Flop Show. The central character, decides to direct a TV series with the genre horror. Driven by this desire he goes overboard to the extent that after going on-air, the serial draws much acclaim from audiences, not for scaring them, but for making them laugh till their stomachs ached.

No doubt, the news reported in Crime Reporter is heart wrenching, but the production team, add unnecessary background scores and emotion packed scripts read out by Raghavendra, whom you could easily mistake for the victim. But his punch line, “Chain se sona hai to jaag jao” takes the cake  and would make even Subhash Chandra Bose (known for his revolutionary speeches) blush.

But why single out Zee? Other shows such as Aaj Tak’s Jurm, Star News ‘Sansani, and India TV’s ACP Arjun  of similar genre  are no less hilarious.

Crime can never stop, but these shows must, or at least get their act together. If not, then viewers like me will continue to laugh and blog about them. Of course, guilt for not empathizing with the crime-stricken victims would be aqually apparent.

In her effort to get the best bride for her son, the highly imaginative ‘wannabe-saas’ has coined one of the most regressive phrase in matrimonial lingo. I wonder why can’t they just use the word “fair.” Most of us would settle for the word fair to describe skin color. But a phrase such as milky-white is an extreme and desperate obsession for a particular complexion is nothing short of demeaning and derogatory for the bride who just aspires for a respectable and loving family.

The world regards India’s desire to have a woman president as proof enough of the respect Indian women receive. But to me this means nothing. In India, people, especially women are still type casted on the basis of color. In spite of successive governments enacting laws to eliminate racial discrimination, there exists a section in society which continues to pump blood and oxygen into ancient discrimination within the same sex. This perhaps is one of the most heinous forms of discrimination.

Glorifying a staunch preference for the fairer skin isn’t a reflection of a progressive society. As more and more corporate advertisers are booked for lack of sensitivity in their advertisements, newspapers continue to permit offensive and demeaning language rather blatantly. Can’t the newspapers adopt measures to put an end to the segregation of women based on color?

Till that happens, it’ll continue to rain milk, at least, in the matrimonial classifieds. So ultimately, it’s upto the would-be brides to see such requisites for what they really are; crap, which is anything but white.

A poverty-stricken farmer purchases a donkey to assist him in daily chores. One hot summer afternoon, accompanied by his son, the farmer sets oiut to perform his routine errands- but with a difference. His son is riding the donkey and the farmer himself is walking by their side. They come across a group of villagers who mock the son for being selfish enough to ride the donkey, and make his father walk. Realizing this, the son gets off the donkey and requests his father to mount it instead.

After traveling a kilometer or so, the trio are met by another group of villagers, who unlike last time, humiliate for not being considerate enough towards his son and making him walk in the hot afternoon. In order to please both groups of villagers, and above all – each other, they both decide to ride the donkey. After traveling another kilometer or so, they come across a third group of villagers who curse them for ill treating the donkey. The duo immediately dismount and decide to walk alongside the donkey. Soon enough they come across a fourth group of people who burst into spills of laughter at their sight. The response from the group is even worse. The villagers said that the father-son duo didn’t quite know the purpose of having a donkey as they were walking alongside it, whereas they should have been riding it!

Phew! difficult situation isn’t it? To cut a long story short, no matter how hard we try to please the world with our actions, the world will still think of reasons to laugh at or curse you. Criticism and hypocrisy are easy to come by in this world. But that isn’t a good enough reason for us to suppress our soul and simply do what the world expects of us. No, definitely not!

Like most lessons in life, I learned this lesson the hard way and seemed to completely agree with the story. I’ve learned that every situation in life is comparable to the situations highlighted in the donkey story, all we need to say is Damn The World!

It is said that language is the best-fitted dress for thought. Then why not dress up my thoughts with a blog? And break the ice too!

My blog, too, has a post now.