Twenty- five Seven

Watch out for the expiry date

September 11, 2012

While shopping for groceries, medicines, cosmetics or any other consumable item, we always look out for the expiry date. Sometimes it is written in large bold letter while more often than not it is written in small, unidentifiable print. You have to turn the can around, squint a bit, hold it against the light and there you will find it written as unobtrusively as possible to avoid disfiguring the attractive packaging. So attracted are we by the outer packaging that we often forget to look for the expiry date and when the fruit begins to smell putrid or the medication is ineffective we wonder what went wrong. We just plain forgot to look for the expiry date.Everything comes with a shelf life – whether it is a man made product or a natural occurrence like sunshine or darkness at night. When the sun rises in the morning you know it will end just as you know that nightfall is limited till the next day break. We are not surprised when day follows night so why should we be surprised when things come to an end?

Unfortunately we imagine that things will last forever – especially those things that are nurtured by us. Our frail human egos have us mistakenly believe that what we have created is a masterpiece that will survive the ravages of time. So when they vanish either voluntarily or accidentally, it comes as a shock to us. But time, the proverbial healer makes us understand that what has changed has changed irrevocably and one should be gracious enough to accept change. After all everything comes with an expiry date : if we didn’t look carefully for the expiry date, it doesn’t mean that it won’t expire.

So even if you didn’t see it coming,
even if the end was truly shocking,
accidental or inadvertent,
nothing in this life is eternal
least of all a
relationship.

For relationships are
fleeting
transactional
and transient
with an expiry date
we fail to see.

That alone will explain one of life’s eternal questions – Why did this happen to me?
Waiting for Claire

September 9, 2012

Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport seems to be a strange place to spend a Sunday morning especially at 8 in the morning, but since I hadn’t gone to the airport since December I thought I’d go along to see how much progress the new airport had made.I must say, it still looked one higgeldy piggeldy mess with mounds of mud covered with weeds, bits of flyover connecting to nothing and a huge umbrella of steel. But the part that was functioning was quite different in the morning.

The airport was still waking up and being cleaned. Trolleys were being moved and the food stalls were still getting ready to open.

The palm trees outside the airport looked green and lush and for a minute could have you wondering if you were in the right place.

The morning calm was quite different from the frenetic midnight madness that I was used to seeing while picking up passengers.

Seeing eye to eye

Taxis waiting

But what I didn’t reckon with was the fumes of alcohol that came from the breath of meeters and greeters. Holding placards announcing names of the passengers they had come to receive, the drivers were all singularly bored. Most of them were lounging around, staring vacantly and perking up only when a passenger showed up. Then there was a frantic activity as they all came forward waving their placards. I overheard one chap looking bewilderingly at his placard and ask another “Yeh aadmi hai ya aurat?” ( is this a man or a woman?), either unable to read the name and definitely unable to recognise Claire as a female name.

When I told him that Claire was a woman, he went up hesitantly to a blonde lady who was looking out for him.

I realised then that it mattered little whether Claire was a man or a woman or whether the meeter & greeter could recognise her: Claire could read her name and would have definitely found him!

Welcome to Bombay!
Do nice guys finish last?

September 8, 2012

It was noon and I was getting late. There were two cars ahead of me and at least ten behind. We were on a downhill road and were prevented from moving ahead by a green Mahindra Bolero. Despite the noisy honking, the traffic just wouldn’t move. I got down and went ahead on foot to finish off my one minute job. On the way I passed the Bolero that was blocking the road. He was going up a one way road and was completely nonchalant about holding up traffic.

I went up to him and politely asked him to back down a bit (even though he had NO BUSINESS AT ALL TO BE THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE since it was a one way road not going in the direction he was going). The guy just stared me in the eye and said:

“I’m not going anywhere! You get into my car and take it in reverse!!!

My blood began to slowly boil.

“You should take it down because there are cars backed up all the way to the main road.”

” I don’t care. I’m not moving!” saying this he just sat obstinately in his car.

With this I was even more enraged. I just didn’t know what to do. I apologised to him for being an idiot and hit my own head three, four times in sheer frustration-transferring my rage and impotency to myself. He still remained unperturbed.

I went ahead to finish my job realising that there is no sense in talking to stubborn asses who insist on doing the WRONG THING .

A while later the driver brought the car down. I asked him what happened. He told me that the green Bolero simply refused to move. So gradually someone from the building close by who had parked his car on the side came down and pulled out his car. This made way for the others to slowly reverse and carefully make space for the green Bolero to move up. And the logjam was cleared.

This just proved one thing. In today’s world nice guys do finish last.

HE WHO HOLDS HIS GROUND, NO MATTER HOW WRONG HIS ACTIONS, ALWAYS WINS.

And as we all know winner takes it all.

So today’s children should be taught the Law of the Jungle rather than the Law of the Land and courtesies and niceties be damned.