Handy Chem

These hands are not mine

They don’t look mine

Is that a stranger’s hand

No, it is my good old hand.

The mount of Venus

Has run out of love it looks

The mount of moon

Seems to be on the wane.

The constant companion in gold

The wedding ring three decades old

Struggling to hang on

Finding the finger thin.

The palms once pink and plump

Now look creased in a slump

The palms now designed with black spots

No lady Macbeth am I to damn the spots.

When I exit this chemistry laboratory

My hands will be back in the old glory

With all chemicals flushed away

I will rule the day.

Snail mails to no mails

The mode of communications has changed much in the past couple of decades. Here I am referring to communication between two persons who are not in close proximity. In present times I do not think twice before dialing up a contact for a quick chat. The person's location is not at all a factor while I make the call. Nor is the subject matter of the call, it could be as trivial as enquiring what was breakfast. 

My thoughts go back to over two decades ago when I began my expat existence. So here I was in Mumbai, the name change had just happened from good old Bombay, getting ready to start the new life. I get a call from a gentleman who wanted to pass on some papers to his son, who was going to be my new colleague in the foreign land. So he drops in the same day with a bulky package and says it has some documents, a pair of shirts and some sweets. After he leaves, my better half cautions me about the package and insists that I open it and check the contents as I will be responsible for the contents when I  land in the foreign port. Having heard enough horror stories of carriers getting locked up for talcum powder turning out to be more heady stuff, I didn't want to take a chance. Fortunately, there was no 'talcum powder'. 

The airport, very different from today, had large crowds dropping off their loved ones. A couple of strangers approached me asking me my destination and requesting if I could carry envelopes, presumably letters, for their near and dear ones at my destination. Putting on a stone face I ignored their pleas. I realised that to save a few rupees on foreign air-mail, this was a regular feature at the airport. At the destination, there would 'collectors' to take over the last-mile journey for these letters. Over the past two decades, this practice seems to have died a natural death.

My first weekend as an expat was in Kuwait. Having nothing much to do I went out for a walk in the evening. It was a cold wintry evening and the streets were deserted. The silence in the streets was deafening, broken occasionally by the roar of the lone vehicle driving past. I was walking towards the city center. As I plodded on, I could hear a low buzzing sound. Sounding almost like a swarm of bees. As I neared the city center the buzzing grew louder. I also started seeing people walking very purposefully in one direction. I did slow down my walk but I continued in the same direction. I turned into the open space at the city center and it was a sight to behold. There were hundreds of people, gathered in multiple groups. I realised it was probably the same as the sounds that were heard at the Tower of Babel. No, it wasn't as if their language had been confounded, but they were indeed speaking different languages.

The groups were different linguistic groups. It dawned on me that this being the holiday for the expat labour community, they gathered in the city center to meet friends and relatives. These gatherings were primarily used to exchange mails brought in by someone who had returned from the homeland. It also served as a point for collecting the outward mails. These outward mails would all be in the airmail envelopes with the red and blue borders. They also would have the requisite stamps affixed. So anyone going home would collect these envelopes and post them as soon as they land in their home country.
I could see all the nationalities there, of course, the majority were Indians. Among Indians, the Malayalees being the majority. Among the Malayalees, the groups were almost village wise. This was the age of audio cassettes and the envelopes that went back and forth also had cassettes in them. The handwritten mails were graduating to audio mails. This was a short-lived phase. Probably the lack of headphones compromised the privacy of these messages.
Further into my stay and travels to the other countries in the region I realised that every large city had similar meeting points for the expat population. Even today when the snail-mails have become almost forgotten, the gatherings still happen. Now the purpose is to meet and greet and the occasional sharing of delicacies brought in by a recent returnee. Despite the VOIP calls and free video calls, it is heartwarming to note that face to face meets are still in fashion. 

Of leaks and lies

Question is ambiguous
paper is porous
examination is ink
they all leak.

Facebook is open
Aadhar insecure
Party apps are thieves
they all steal.

Assurances mount
falsehoods multiply
loud voices are louder
all hot air.

Confidence ebbs
Governance wanes
newer slogans blare
noise is a cover all.

Shout drowns out
the voice of sanity
Oft repeated lie
is truth engraved on rock.

More eyes can see you
more ears can hear you
tap the keyboard
let the lies flow.

Monsoon thoughts

Wet greens all around
As the wet black snakes through
Black is uneven
Spotted with brown pools.

Pits camouflaged with muddy wetness
Snaring the unsuspecting
To fathom the depths
Of damages and no returns.

Gathering around the hot cuppa
Tales of more wetness shared
The more adventurous
Prophecy wetness for coming days.

The wet now precipitates
Drumming on the roof
Poring on the windshield
Wiper swishes wishing away the deluge.

Fogging the insides
Pitter patter of small arms
Now changes to the staccato of automatics
The crescendo scaling a pitch, I cannot hear me think.

The window seat beckons
The palm leaves nod in agreement
The flowers bow with added weight
I look for the break in the cloud canopy.

The sky a canvas
With cloudy grey
The sky-blue and sunny yellows
Wait for another day.

The sunny yolk on the horizon
A memory waiting to be reborn
Today is again a dark and wet day.

Privacy

PRIVACY

George Orwell in his futuristic treatise ‘1984’ has strewn many a pearl of wisdom, which then appeared as pebbles. These pebbles have over the past decades started shining through as the pearls they are. His most famous statement “Big Brother is Watching You” is not just a warning for us today because the  big brother is not just watching he is also directing and controlling us and ours.

The voyeuristic tendencies, inherent to human kind, has started to bite where it hurts. It was fine as long as the rich and famous had their dirty linen washed in the yellow broadsheets. Reading these behind the doors stories titillated one and all. Now when our own privacy is compromised, the shoe is biting.

I remember the short one-liners that used to be in the office emails, which used to be the official privacy policy of the organization. Most used to go as “if you are not the intended recipient of this email, kindly delete this mail” OR “If you are not the intended recipient of this mail, then please mail to  xyz@abc.com” and various other versions of this. How idealistic and naïve the world was then. How different it is now in this age of virtual life.

We take pride now in putting on the virtual platter pictures of everything that we eat, places we visit, people we meet up, clothes that we buy, at times clothes that we do not buy and similar other innocuous events and articles. Then we keep tabs of how well or poorly our virtual platters are being viewed and liked.

In the good old days, we double checked the locks at home, patted the pocket to see if the wallet was still there, gummed the envelopes, filed away receipts and bills and listened to our mother’s advice – ‘don’t talk to strangers’. Today when the hard checks have become soft ones in our lives, are we less careful? We do not think twice before filling up a raffle form or a feedback form at the Mall with personal details. Click and collect is becoming the norm and the credit card information is provided to any and every merchant. We accept friend requests from these virtual strangers with whom we share our life stories. Orwell also said, “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself”, this is all the truer now.

All our life we have been told to avoid dark alleys and lonely places, yet we have no qualms in getting into shady virtual places and registering our personal details to leave an indelible impression. While we unhesitatingly provide personal details, we cry foul when we are told about the ‘leaks’. This raises the question of responsibility. Who is more irresponsible the individual who shared privacy data or the custodian of such data? A debatable point, perhaps both are equally to blame. The custodians vouchsafe themselves with reams of small print as an agreement with the individual, who being a very agreeable person never reads the fine print but agrees to everything! Can we not have a standard, generic and authorized ‘non-disclosure agreement’ to be used by all.

And now we have GDPR. In simple terms, GDPR  is a data protection law that governs how websites store and retain the personal data of EU citizens. The simplicity ends there. Start reading the fine print and you realise that this ‘beast’ has stealthily slipped in. While it had been maturing during the past few years, it did not get the attention that it deserves. Now suddenly it is in our face. For the non-EU citizens, the GDPR impact has been in the form of an avalanche of emails from various virtual worlds where one registered and forgot. These sites are now writing to tell all that they are GDPR compliant and their policy is updated, they are now more transparent about how they store or use personal data.

It was shocking as well as a rude wake-up call when I saw the GDPR compliant mail from an astrology site that I used eons ago. While I had forgotten about them, they still remembered me. I then chose the next best option of unsubscribing. But it was not that easy. I had to browse through three more pages and leave some more information before I could unsubscribe. Did I really unsubscribe? Time alone will answer this question.

So how does one maintain ‘privacy’ in this binary world? Having a non-digital existence is the safest route but probably impossible in this age. Awareness is key to protecting one’s privacy. “Words once said can never be taken back “ is now “key-clicks that you make cannot be un-clicked”. So, before every click one needs to exercise the due diligence required. Go minimal is the best advice under current circumstances. Where one can browse around as a guest, it is preferable to be one.  Before divulging any personal information on the virtual media, it would be prudent to ask oneself the following questions:

• 1.       Why do they (the website/service provider) need this information?
• 2.       Can this information be miss-used?
• 3.       Is this information being held securely?
• 4.    Finally, it is good to remember that one’s personal information, photos, passwords etc., are personal and more than anyone else the individual is responsible for its safekeep.

If one is convinced with the answers to the above then one can go ahead with providing information.

Ear full

As Indians do we have a different standard for defining 'noise', just as we are known to have different standards for tolerance to spice, hygiene, personal space, nosiness, know-all ness and every otherness? 

I am on a break, in India soaking in all the different levels. I am recalibrating my tolerance levels to old known levels. I need to do this periodically so that I do not become too complacent and comfortable in my congenial adopted home and forget the fact that I need to get back one day. The orchestra that my neighbour conducts at 5AM beats the pleasant morning alarm chimes from my phone. This neighbour is a firm believer in washing all steel utensils before sunrise. She or he, difficult to guess the gender from the cacophony, uses decibels and not detergents for the washing. I doze off again when the steel-utensils-orchestra becomes the new normal, only to be woken up again by a rather strange noise. The noise is a cross between a cat getting strangled and the goods train passing through a tunnel. I realise it is again from the neighbourhood. I almost do a 'eureka' when I discover that the sound is generated by another musical soul who is clearing his throat, this time I am sure about the gender.

Although there is a construction site close by, the decibel level from the site is challenged by every animate and inanimate object around me. I wonder how the saints of the past and, if any, in the present, meditated in this eardrum-splitting environment. No wonder the celestial damsels were required to break their meditation, elsewhere a loud cracker burst would have done the job. And fireworks were what welcomed me into the new year. My last new year eve in India was about to celebrate its silver jubilee and I did not allow that by having the new year bash back home this year. The crackers started going off much before midnight, perhaps the clocks were a little fast for those early revellers. Once someone started, the others could not wait and within no time all joined in the I-have-better-fireworks contest. In my opinion, all the noise about placing controls on fireworks and pollution have only given more sound, fury and smoke to the fancy sounding crackers.

The reason behind my making noise about Noise was an experience I had one morning when I went to one of the corner shops to get some documents scanned. As I had almost fifty odd pages to be scanned and the scanner available did not have sheet-feeder functionality, I had to hang around for an hour while the documents were getting scanned page by page. There was a gentleman in the next shop who seem to be having a shouting match. I could only hear his loud tirade all the while and could not hear any responding voice. Out of curiosity, I went out to investigate, rather peek. To my surprise, I saw that he was having a phone conversation. I also realised that with the kind of free talk-time availability, this conversation, if it was one, would go on for hours. Out of consideration for the health of his vocal cords, I thought there was a need to react. Despite knowing well that any comment or objection from me could fetch an even worse verbal or physical reaction from him, I decided that something needs to be done. Through gestures, I communicated to him that he needs to tone down his voice. I am not sure why but there was an immediate positive effect. His voice came down to normal levels and he continued the phone conversation. Rest of my waiting time was spent in peace and I managed to hear the drums of the scanner. That set me off thinking if the tolerance or silence is the reason for such thunderous surrounding around us.

Have you also wondered why people must be so loud? Does louder mean more authority? Yes, if you are commanding a parade you need to be loud to be heard but when you are on the phone is it necessary. People tend to forget that Graham Bell had them in mind while inventing this wonderful device, which saves the trouble of shouting across distances. The decibel level seems to be directly proportional to the distance between the caller and receiver.   

It was very interesting to note the UK has the following prohibited times on noise making: Monday to Friday: before 7 am and after 8 pm. Weekends and public holidays: before 9 am and after 8 pm. Note: The prohibited times apply when the noise can be heard from inside a habitable room of other residential premises. Any residential noise can still be considered unreasonable outside the prohibited times

Maybe we need to clamour to have such a rule in India without adding to the noise.

Revisit 2

The foundation of a state
From laterite stone
Stone so red
those reds came
through ballots
and not barrels.
The valley, womb of the stones
abode of the homeless
the have-nots,
demi-gods the dons
running the roost
lives so cheap.
Fortieth they say is a ruby
a ruby ago
I walked these streets
cycled these streets
Now in this abode
nine floors high
I look at the remains
of yesteryears
development has cleaned up
the greens of yesterday
the slums of yore
new towers elbowing out
the pigmy shanties.
looking at the expanse
I soak in the new
probing for the familiar
I get only the different
out in the streets
the lingo has changed
fusion and migration
is the identity lost?

Re-visit

Two decades
A gross
Twenty years
Prodigal son returns
Albeit for twenty hours
Savor in twenty hours
The missing years
Unseen sights
Missed friends
Untasted flavours
Unheard melodies
And the locals
Can't do the walks
Cannot the rides
Can't wait the tides
Cannot sip the beers
Lone rangers
Lonely rides
Metering the changes
Need longer tapes
The changed faces
Good long stares
Memory returns
Turned pages
Mental photoshops
Work overtimes
Yes it's
the same faces
Flashbacks
It has snowed on the crowns
The dense black thatches
Now white and sparse
The flat midriffs
Now filled out convex
The metamorphosis
None appreciates
Benjamin Button we are not.

monster whale

When whale of a game
Takes a new fame
Moving up fifty steps
and a drop so blue.

what are you chasing
pleasure and pain bearing
as you move up the steps
only to realize the wingless never flew.

withdrawn into the shell
you get so close to the kill
the illusion of climbing steps
actually sucking you down into the stew.

What of the dear ones
those that stay back with wet eyes
when you soar up delusionary steps
mourning your loss in the pews.

Tag and seven stones
break no bones
snakes and ladders many steps
Remember the whale is no fish.

Bolt no more

When you saw the heels

Two pairs of heels

You didn't look sideways 

You could see their back. 

The chasers changed roles

Though you didn't choose

Through their grimace 

Visible success on their face. 

You have not lost

Never in the past

Young age and fresh legs

Brought your rest closer. 

Au revoir athlete

Par excellence 

Your sprint etched in memory 

We wait for another bolt. 

solitary crane

the pride of place
sticking out from the crown
straight as an arrow
I surveyed the countryside.
shot up in feet
reaching out to higher glory
as the building grew
I remained above all.
the builders did not return
the machinery all silent
the growth now stunted
I stand tall gathering dust.
forgotten and unsung now
immobile and unmanned
resting ground for avians
I have now become a fixture.
once again life sprouts around
spanners on the nuts and bolts
limbs come off
I am being dismantled.

whatsup whatsapp

Bugs bunny relaxing and chewing on a carrot while blurting out a nonchalant 'what's up doc' fills up my memory screen when my phone chimes an incoming WhatsApp message. When Elmer Fudd the hunter pokes Bugs Bunny with a loaded double-barrel this nonchalant response was a game changer. There was no scurrying of rabbit-feet nor screams which would have been the expected response those days in a comic. Instead, the long-limbed rabbit lying in a very relaxed pose spits out a 'whats up doc?' from the corner of his mouth. Acton and Koum, when their journey from Yahoo to Facebook did not happen, decided to develop a social app and called it 'WhatsApp' a derivative of 'what's up'. And as they say, rest is history.

WhatsApp too has been a game changer. While Yahoo groups, Orkut and facebook have been instrumental in reviving old ties and friendships, Whatsapp brought about a paradigm shift in social communication. Of course, it has also brought along a new set of maladies.

Realisation hit me a couple of weeks ago that I am rushing in the morning to complete my chores, whereas I used to relax and enjoy my cuppa while flipping through the newspaper. And the culprit I could see was WhatsApp. Over the past year, I have been discovered by long lost friends and herded into groups - school groups, class groups, like-minded groups. For someone with the multiple lives spent in 9 schools, two colleges and six jobs, there is no dearth of groups for me.Wading through the messages in the morning was eating into my otherwise relaxed schedule. I am trying to collate here the experiences gathered at these various groups.
The work of the roosters has now been taken over by the roosters within your whatsapp groups. One can do away with wake-up alarms now as these new generation roosters are very punctual. Without missing a day they send out the morning greeting at the same time day after day. These greetings will also have some pearls of wisdom. These pearls of wisdom invariably are forwards which the sender might  not have even read nor understood.
Members in a new group are like kids with a new toy. The first few days in a new group are worse than what probably happened at the tower of Babel. Everyone tries to have one-to-one conversations and there are few meaningful group conversations. Many egos bite the dust and the hurt ones take the exit route. School groups, especially if the re-connection is happening after a couple of decades or more, will start off with introductions and exchange of photographs and old stories. Once most of this is done, an awkward silence begins. The conversation graph goes south and the stale meaningless forwards become the only activity in the group. These groups do hit a peak now and then when a new member joins or when one of the member has an anniversary.
When one is a member of a multitude of groups,one is prone to certain occupational hazards. Some of the forwards get re-forwarded to the same group. My standard excuse in such instances is that the forward was so good that it deserved a re-forward.Generally such 'mistakes' go unnoticed as many members dont read all conversations. However there is also a breed of nit-pickers who take great pleasure in pointing out such oversights. 
In a multi-linguistic country it is inevitable that some members send out forwards in minority languages. The linguistic champions then descend on such unfortunate victims like a tonne of bricks, admonishing them for the sacrilege committed. 
Epic writers are another bane for the whatsapp community. Blog writers who send out their long-winded lectures in the forum do not realise that most of their stuff never gets read. The famous US Navy doctrine of KISS applies here too - Keep It Simple(short) Stupid. 
The knights in shining armour are the modern day Don Quixotes. They strike at every windmill and take pride in slaying hoaxes. Unsubstantiated forwards and misleading 'authentic' information need to be nipped in the bud. The Hoax Slayers are a community I personally appreciate. 
I wonder what happens with all this digital communication that is flying back and forth. The ease of use and the non-expensive nature has helped in the proliferation. There are huge servers dotting the universe which store and relay these messages. The energy used up by these machines to transmit trivia to and fro is adding to the carbon footprint. I have read somewhere, I am not in a position to verify this, that a  typical year of incoming mail for a business user – including sending, filtering and reading – creates a carbon footprint of around 135kg. That's over 1% of of a relatively green 10-tonne lifestyle and equivalent to driving 200 miles in an average car. These calculations could be best guesses, but they are worth giving a thought to.
A simple 'hello' or even a 'whatsup doc' has now evolved into an addictive communication malady that influences our daily lives in more ways than we can think of.

Work life - a new definition ?

Today is a Friday. In this part of the world, it is a 'Sunday'. However in the virtual world that we all have migrated to, the 'day' and time does not matter. The sun never sets on the cyber empire. My queries of yesterday, my yesterday, are fetching me answers even as I write this, from people who have just started the day. Time seems to have ceased to be the fourth dimension. The working day seems to have become a continuum.

I work on my present through the emails and the forums that I am active in. Every 'ping' and 'pop-up window' pulls me into the present and  'here'. It injects an urgency into me and makes me react immediately. It tosses all my 'time management' lessons out of the window. Makes me drop everything and react.  The emails are so here and so now that it is not strange to get a follow-up phone call with every mail. At the office the colleague in the cubicle across sends a mail and then walks over to remind you to check the mail.  My daughter, then a school going kid, once spent half-day at my office with me. While we drove back home her question was - is mailing the only activity that you do at the office? Very observant! 

Are we seeing an overdose of communication in the corporate world? Yes, email threads (they should be called ropes) twist and turn adding new tributaries flowing through the organization. Every fibre added to this thread has its creator's signature and shouts out a loud 'Yes I am also here'. Some contributors pick up the wrong end of the thread and respond resulting in the thread going in two different directions at times. This often happens when simultaneous responses are given. While 'Great minds think alike' the simultaneous responses need not be similar. The responses can then see a branching of the thread. The email thread now becomes a many-headed Hydra. Like the mythological Hydra for every broken thread, multiple threads come up. The only Hercules who can perform this labor successfully is either the head of the organization or a major system crash.
As all 'e' gets replaced with 'm', we are now over-reliant on mobile communication. Not voice but text and all other media. Corporate communication too has percolated to WhatsApp, boon or a bane time alone can tell.  I have managed a day at the office using my cell phone to do almost all the work when I forgot the laptop at home. It wasn't too difficult. I know a colleague who hardly uses his laptop, constantly on the phone and in a coffee shop. Of course, he must now be wearing a neck collar.
This flexibility of work hours and office space becoming all-pervasive has impacted the working hours greatly. Telecommuting, working from home are all fancy words for not having to shave, bath, dress up and commute. One can slouch around in PJs in one's favourite resting place at home and work. The downside is that there are no fixed hours to this working lifestyle. The communication expectations have now scaled new levels. Personal or official, one is expected to respond instantly. Time or day of the week is immaterial.
So in today's world with the workspace and work hours creeping into one's personal space and time, it was indeed a whiff of fresh air when the French government ruled in favour of employees to disconnect from work after work hours. The seamless work hours has created an explosion of undeclared labour. It has also resulted in expectations that border on the impossible. When half your team sits in a different time zone, your workday stretches beyond the hours stipulated by labour laws of your country. It becomes impossible to disconnect from work and when a government recognises this, it is a welcome sign.
I am told that the new gen or the millennials, with their addiction to instant gratification, find it difficult to differentiate between the real life and cyber life. They do not know where to draw the line when it comes to instant gratification. A post in the cyberspace gets them instant likes similarly they expect the workplace to be full of low-hanging fruits. The reality of the workspace frustrates them and resulting in short tenures at each job.
Work life continues to be constantly evolving and those in a bricks-and-mortar 9 to 5 job find it extremely difficult to fathom the lives of those who have flexi hours and flexi location options.

Give me a Lift

In most of our vertical cities, we are condemned to use the lift at least four times in a day. It begins with getting out of the apartment and coming down to earth and the second use could possibly be when you go up to your ivory tower cubicle or work desk. A third occasion is when the lift hurls you down at the end of your workday from your ivory tower to join the multitude of tired souls trudging back home. And if you are a homing bird the fourth occasion is when the lift encapsulated you and delivers you back to your cocoon your home. Of course, there are people who do not use the elevators even once a day and also those whose usage far exceed the four occasions described above.

I have started noticing the 'lift culture' and I can see it is very telling on the location, time of the day and of course nature of users.

let us look at the 'waiting for the lift' stage. The current generation of potential spondylitis patients that we are, we tend to avoid eye-contact with fellow travelers and busy ourselves with our phones or similar devices. Everyone has their head bent at an awkward angle and eyes squinting at the bright screens of their phones. While most may not have a new message or mail to read, they still do this to avoid any social contact of the brick and mortar, or should I say 'flesh and bone' kind. Then there is always the risk of awkward incidents such as opening up an audio or video which are private in nature. People also use this as an opportunity to show off the devices they possess.

Although eye contact with fellow travelers is avoided, everyone keeps out a surreptitious look for the next lift arriving. There will also be some stealthy moves being made towards the next arrival. Invariably you will find a habitual offender rushing in from nowhere to take up the most vantage access point. These late comers have perfected the art of looking busy, important and most of all the 'I was always here' look.

Reverse engineers are another category of lift users that one comes across. This tribe will take the lift going to the basement to actually go up to a higher floor. They are the ones who have used the local trains in Mumbai  - where you travel back to Churchgate in order to go to Borivli! They beat the crowd and probably lose a few precious seconds of their lives. 

At any and sometimes every floor one comes across the lost souls. The lost souls are the directionless ones who have this perpetual question for the lift traveler when the door opens - " going down?" The indicator outside can flash the brightest colours but these Columbuses will only be satisfied if an inmate answers that the lift is indeed traveling sideways.

The 'button pushers' are another category of panicky travelers. They have a strong belief that the more number of times you push the button the faster the lift travels or arrives. Once they get into the lift they will push the button to close the doors, they do not believe that the door will automatically close and also they do not want anyone else to get in.

The 'blockers' are the category that has just come off the soccer field or the basket ball court. They prefer to travel with a lot of elbow space and leg room. Once they enter the lift, they get rooted at the entrance to ensure nobody else gets in. They run the occupational hazard of getting tackled by the latecomers (described elsewhere).

Finally we have the lift lovers, they leave the lift very reluctantly at their destination. They continue the conversation with fellow travelers, who still have floors to go, holding the door open with total disregard for other passengers. 

Cash Q

Having heard and seen in the media the new experience that everyone is facing these days in India, I ventured out of my virtual world to gain first-hand bricks and mortar experience. I walked up to my Bank branch that I frequent when in town, armed with my cheque book. There were just 4 men standing outside the door, but when I tried to enter the guard stopped me and asked the purpose of my visit. I flashed the cheque book and told him that I wanted to withdraw money from my account. He asked me to join the four guys and wait. After 5 minutes when the guard again appeared at the door, I showed him the words "Preferred" on the cheque leaf and asked if I could get the 'preference'. He gave me the helpless smile and shrug of shoulders. Another 5 minutes and the five of us got ushered into the branch. My account manager recognized me and greeted me. When he learned the purpose of my visit he pointed towards the two counters that had about 30 people each standing and told me that I could choose to join either of the queues. Very helpful account manager! Next time when he makes an overseas call to speak to me, I will let him know my exact feelings.
As I stood very patiently and with every intention of seeing this through, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see a gentleman with a couple of forms and cheques in hand. When I inquisitively arched my eyebrows, he said - ' Sir why don't you go to that counter, there are only two people waiting there'. Of course, my parents have taught me as a kid not to talk to strangers and over the years I have grown very skeptic of strangers who try to help me in a bank. So my response was I am OK here. Then two others also said the same thing to me. In a democracy, you cannot refuse such an offer voiced by more than one person. I moved to this shorter queue and stood happily there. The gentleman from the longer queue then explained to me - ' Sir this line is for senior citizens, why should you wait so long in the other line'.
I was out of the bank in another two minutes. So it didn't take me five hours to withdraw money but the experience has now got me staring into any mirror that I pass by. Senior citizen - who me ? Couldn't be, at least not yet! 

when past comes haunting

It was in October 21years ago that I first left the safe shore of home and the first foreign land that I touched down was Kuwait. Again I was back in the same land for a two-day business trip. An uneventful and empty flight brought me into the city. Uneventful, yes until the bumpy touchdown. I did my regular routine, done it at least 10 times in the past decade and half, of rushing to the Visa counter and picking up a number from the token machine. The next part of the process is anybody's guess - your number appears on the screen and you go to the counter and hand over the paperwork along with the cost of Visa and get a paper that allows you entry into the country. So here I was at the counter when my number came up and the polite lady after some checks on the computer screen asked me to take a seat as she had to check more.

Now, this was an unscripted activity. A different activity from the usual. After a decent wait of over 30 mins, I got called by an in-charge with stars on his shoulder. He said 'you have a fine'.

Not fully understanding what he said, I replied 'yes, I am fine'.

Then his next comment slowly sunk in 'no you are not fine. You have an outstanding fine'.

That was an Oops moment for me and I asked 'what fine'.

His response was ' I don't know, telephone, electricity, anything!'.

'But I left this country in 2000. 16 years ago. While I have come back at least 10 times on short visits and never once have I been told that I have some dues'. the response was a shrug of shoulders and a request for me to sit and wait.

After a lot of 'please wait for one minute', actually after two hours I was informed that I had a due from a traffic accident. 

That eventful morning then flashed before me, the grey wintry morning when I had an accident on the fifth ring road. Yes it was in 1999 December, almost 17 years ago. I recollected the white smoke that billowed out behind my car as the rubber burned the asphalt or was it the other way around. Either way, I had hit the car in front and I was unhurt. Couldn't say the same about the car, as I had to exit from not my usual exit door. In two minutes a police car reached me and was controlling the rush hour traffic around us. I felt more important when I saw the police helicopter hovering over us but then it disappointed  me by flying away. The gentleman whom I hit, let me rephrase that, the person driving the car which my car hit, drove me away from the accident site. I do recollect us going to the police station and sorting out all the paper work.

But now, after 17 years the incident had come back on the screen of an official. I expressed my willingness to pay and another chapter of the saga was opened. They, the officials, did not have a clue  about the process to accept this payment. It took another two hours before a genius appeared on the site and took me to a different counter where the payment could be accepted through a manual transaction.  Paper, pen technology saved the day for me.

As I write this I still am sure I had paid this fine 17 years ago! 

Clinical visit

Touch wood! My association with clinics have been limited and rare. I am not the healthiest specimen on the face of earth but probably the laziest and a firm believer of time being the best healer. My better half being non-believer of the idiom, forced me to visit a clinic for a chronic issue that I had been carrying around for over 10 years. The issue was a harmless swelling behind the ankle that kept me company all these years without complaining of my foot odour or any other discomfort that I subject my lower extremities to. 

So off I went to the nearest clinic. This was a new one that I was venturing to as I had moved house recently and the old clinic did not move with me to this side of the town. This clinic, looking more like a five star hotel, was recommended by a well meaning friend. I walked into the cool confines of the entrance lobby and looked for the reception. Having located the reception in the bright cavernous lobby, I marched  purposefully  to the lady manning the counter. To a  not so welcoming look I said the greetings, which got reciprocated grudgingly and the eyebrows formed a interrogation sign. Paradoxical words " how can I help you" sounded from below the interrogation sign. The conversation went this way .

Me - I would like to see a GP, please.

She - We don't have GPs , we only have specialists. Which specialist would you like to meet?

Me - I am not sure, that's why I prefer meeting a GP who can then direct me to the right specialist.

She - what exactly is your problem?

Me  - I have a swelling behind my ankle 

She - Can I see ?

Me - Are you a doctor ?

By then she walked around the counter and said - I am not a doctor but I can decide which specialist you should go to.

I exposed my ankle and she let out some sympathetic noises, which sounded like the mother hen chiding young chicken, and said - let me refer you to Surgery.

As the word surgery cut into me, I stitched it with a response - I would still prefer a doctor to diagnose and refer me to anyone else. 

That response of mine questioned her years of experience sitting at the reception and handing out diagnoses and remedies to uninitiated souls like me. She certainly did not take it kindly and pronounced her final judgement.

She - I have seen this before also and the surgeon will have to operate on this and cut it out. The only way to treat this is to surgically remove it. 

Me - Thank you .

I rushed out of the clinic and i could hear her trying to reassure that it wasn't as bad as she made it out to be, but I was keen to break Usain Bolt's record. Once in the safer confines of my car and a kilometer from the clinic I wondered with such receptionist around what would the doctors role be?

Seeking refuge

Whose shores are these 

Water so cold

And sand so hard

My heart so still. 

No sand castles

Our castles destroyed

Not running barefoot in the sand

But running away from motherland. 

No laughter no cries of joy

No lazy sunny afternoons

This shore so quiet

As tears lap the shore. 

To the welcoming shore

They said we will go 

Unwanted , unloved and unknown 

We have been washed up the shores. 

Why is this shore not mine

Why did  I inherit a land with mines

Why is three year old a refugee

Was I born to wrong parents. 

I feel the cold water coming back

To caress my cheeks so white 

Is it sea water or tears of humanity 

Both so salty. 

Not an iota but IoT

I did not know that the term Internet of Things (IoT) was coined almost 15 years ago. It is only recently that I have seen IoT is being discussed and commonly referred to. I recollect reading about RFID tags around the same time as the coining of IoT took place. These tags were going to revolutionize inventory management and many other Retail and logistics processes. The rider was - RFID tags should cost less than a Nickel, only then would it be feasible to be used extensively. The reason I mention this is, because in my opinion, it is a precursor to IoT. For the 'Things' to communicate to each other some such 'intelligence' like an RF tag is necessary.

I relate to IoT as a sci-fi concept from much earlier times. Where every inanimate object that we surround ourselves with is able to communicate with each other and take 'appropriate' actions. In an ideal IoT scenario my bed is able to calculate the amount of sleep I have had, it is integrated with my calendar and knows how soon I should get up. I get woken up by the bed - singing, screaming or shaking determined by the choice of the day. As my feet slip into my slipper, my kettle comes on and the water temperature in the bathroom adjusts to the optimal temperature that I seek. The Possibilities are many and as we fantasize or visualize.

And perhaps scary. Am reminded of a comic I read more than 4 decades ago. The robots take over the world. The robot decides everything for you. No you can’t have that second bite of cheese cake; not another shot of single malt; time to hit the sac - lights out; and on and on. Do we need that big-brother? Perhaps selectively required. We could end up a healthy race and wouldn’t end up spending a lot of our time searching for keys that were kept in a 'very secure' place. 

An ideal IoT world will not just be flat but everything within arms distance. Does that make future generations less active? My grandfather was a healthy nonagenarian. My father in his mid-fifties could beat me, a 17 year old then, in a game of badminton. Their health was vouched by their physical life and habits. IoT through devices wearable and otherwise will remind me to get off my seat and walk, scream when my cuppa has more sugar or the dinner plate has more calories, prompt me to walk those extra steps to achieve my daily quota of 8000 steps.

50 Billion devices are expected to be connected to the IoT by 2020. Only another 5 years, most of us will be around and we will know whether it will be 50 or 500 Billion. From the intelligent fridge that will order replenishment to the medicine bottle which will not only order replenishment but also remind the user to have the medicine, the possibilities are enormous. 50 or 500 billion is just a number.

cattle class

Cheap travel 

The terminal 

An apology for its namesake

Number two it is.

 

The gleaming tiles

The flashy lights 

Closer look shows the cracks. 

The passengers too 

Like merchandise at outlet store

Discounted and cheap

Giving a 'I am not here' look 

No fancy branded

Luggage here

Just the anonymous black boxes. 

The duty free another

Country cousin

With cheaper brands and sparse shelves