Mistakes, Apologies

Mistakes are common, so are apologies to some extent. I am eager to meet a person who never committed even a single mistake in his life, so that he can commit the first one. I am equally eager to meet a person who never heard an apology from anyone – just to tell him “I’m so sorry, it took such a long time for me to meet a person like you”!

“Apologizing always does not mean that you are wrong and the other person is right. It just means you value your relationship more than your ego.” – Anonymous.

Let me apologize first for not writing well some of my blogs which would not have met your expectations. But with the good comes the bad right? This is not to prove a point that I do not have or value much my ego. I am myself not happy on the quality of some of my blogs.  But then my secret to happiness is low expectations, though I am extremely happy for people who have high expectations. To be on a safer side, if at all you read my blogs, please read them first thing in the morning. As Mark Twain said, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day”.

One common mistake people make is falling prey to group thinking. In a group of ten people, if nine of them look at the same information and arrive at the exact same conclusion, it is the duty of the tenth person to disagree. He can play the role of a devil’s advocate and it will not be considered as mistake. If his views turn out to be wrong, then he can always tender an apology – verbal, written, unconditional, – in whichever form as required. So be the tenth man as required and disagree, and rest of the time try to listen to any tenth man.

This week , Skyalert, a mobile app company in Mexico City apologised to their users. Mexico City is prone to earth quakes. In 1985, at least 10,000 people were killed there because of an earth quake of magnitude 8.1. This week, their app alerted people to evacuate their buildings at noon, asking them to prepare for a quake within seconds. People vacated for obvious reasons, but then the alarm turned out to be a false one. There is nothing wrong in apologizing in this case without thinking much, as the inconvenience caused is not that much compared to the consequences at the event of the alarm does not go at all in a genuine situation.  

Once I had joined my friends and seniors to seek an apology from nobody less than chief engineer at the Electricity board. This was when I was in seventh standard. All because of one of my friends - Chandru. Chandru was an obedient student, would do exactly what our teachers advised. That day he ventured out to relieve himself. As one of the lessons taught to him was to “always explore new areas in life” he walked into a remote field. Then he remembered next lesson – “anything you do, do with an aim”. He aimed at the stay wire which was tied to the electric pole, ( A stay wire is used so that the electric pole do not fall on to the ground due to any unforeseen reason. Normally these stay wires are insulated from the live electric line so that no current could pass through them. ) Unfortunately in this particular set up somehow the live wire was in contact with the stay wire and it was as  lively as Chandru!. Rest you can imagine, all I can say is human urine is one of the best conductors of electricity. People working on the field saw Chandru collapsing and they rushed him to hospital, he survived with no much damage!

That’s when we decided to march to the electricity office to get an apology. The chief engineer did not budge initially. His argument was that the teachers should have prevented their students from wandering into stray places. Much educated fellow than us, did not have brains to understand that if those teachers had any control on us, we would not have been wandering in his equally stray place at the first place! After a bit of argument, he finally tendered a written apology to our leader. Good that the journalists and the press were not that active those days, else the next day front line news would have been “relieving but equally shocking experience”!

It is always a good practice to apologize for a mistake you committed. But, if you commit the same mistake again and then try to apologize, it may not be effective – people will not know where your mistake ends and where your apology starts.

Knowing is difficult

“How are you?” I am sure you would have asked this question today to at least one person. I also do ask this question with no intent. It’s just another way to greet him. But at least there is a feeble attempt to know him!

But, do I ever ask myself, how am I or how am I doing? to know myself.  I am not talking about asking this loudly in presence of people. If I start doing that way, they will take me to a psychiatrist to know me better. “The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself”- Thales. That might be the reason.

Uber’s car service wants to know your experience, so they ask you to rate your drivers. Also, like many other right things in that “left-hand” drive world, their system does allow one more thing. In turn they let the drivers to rate you as well. So that, when they are out on the roads, they would know what they might be in for. For example one typical feedback to the driver will read like this  – “ if the customer is a short, pot-bellied, bald, 50+ year old man, then in all probability, he might ask you  to slowdown if you try to cross 40 mph even once and give you a rating of 1 out of 10, irrespective of at what speed you drive, choice is not yours "

There are agencies that let you know a few good things about a product, by showing ads. It seems the packaged coconut water business is a multi-billion one world-wide. It was promoted that coconut water is good for health, good for kidney, and good for many other organs. Then there are these nutrition researchers, their job is to constantly puncture holes in these theories so that common man does not fall prey to these (f)ads. They have recently concluded that, coconut water contains 19% Potassium, 4% Calcium, 4% Sodium, 4% Magnesium. And more sugar than that in fruit juice, among others the only thing which you know the taste - though it’s not good for health. They came to the conclusion that as far as nutrition values go, a pack of coconut water is equivalent to one banana + one glass of water,  which you can buy for 1/5^th the cost of coconut water pack. So if you are cash strapped, and if at all you are concerned not much as how many types of chemicals, in what measures go into your body, then you may go for a banana, and a glass of tap water. If you are cash rich, then obviously you will look for a different taste and will anyway opt for coconut water.

One Thomas came to my house when I decided to purchase a vehicle, taking loan from the dealer itself. While signing the papers, they had hinted me that somebody will come to know more about me! But, actually Thomas did not ask many questions. He was 6+ ft tall, weighing 100+ Kgs with a thick mush. He appeared to be in constant look out of his next prey, after killing many people on a warfront-like environment. Should he have asked more? For that matter, should I have asked for more ! His visit was just to let me indirectly know that a few “Thomas-like” people will see me and do the needful, if I default their monthly installment.

Most of us have credit cards, the one we extensively use to swipe to reach the credit limit quickly, without knowing how much to spend, which will wipe out the money from our accounts later! KYC – know your customer norms are mandated for them. But primary interest for some of them lies only in confirming my residential address. So that, if I am unable to pay, instead of lifting a useless fellow like me, they can lift my useful, movable assets.

Know that you don’t know you well. That will help you in not getting into too many unknown problems.

Holding hands

I don’t remember when I held somebody’s hand first in my life. But I am pretty sure of doing that, when I was a small baby. Initially, holding it while lying down thinking that it is another toy shown to me. And then subsequently for a more serious reason to get support when I decided to stop crawling and attempt walking. That first handholding was the very foundation for successful walks of my life so far.

It is an art to release the hand at the right time while shaking hands with someone, else that would result in holding the hand. We, young men had a problem with that when we travelled first time to the US. They used to give feedback that we guys hold hand tight and for a much longer duration while shaking hands with them, especially with the women. Since we were not accustomed to that practice of greeting, we were too nervous. Special training sessions were arranged for the same. How to stand, how far to stand of course after spraying sufficient quantities of deodorant, how much pressure to apply, approximately how many shakes and when to release the hand! That way our Indian conventional system of greeting is advantageous, you can do that “Namaste”, you can choose to stand a bit far if you are allergic to deodorants; you can hold your own hands for as much time as you wish with no inconvenience to others. No need to worry at all as what sexuality the other party belongs to.

I think I had narrated this episode in one of my earlier blogs in some other context. How does it matter? I myself do not remember what all I had written while blogging day in day out. How will you recollect something as you keep reading so many blogs by so many people?  With that belief let me continue. After having food from the hostel canteen I decided to go and relax in the recreation room. I saw everybody reading newspaper and nothing was available for me to read. I looked around and found the reason. Our man, Ratinam was watching a Carnatic music program on TV, so others didn’t have much choice. Not knowing what to do, I sat next to Ratinam pretending that I too enjoy the music. I realised, simply sitting would not be all that convincing, so I also started tapping on my lap like Ratinam did. Must be the food that day was unusually good, my taps became a bit heavier and louder which resulted in me getting my first and last strongest hold in my life on my hand by someone else. “Wrong beat boss”, Ratinam was so annoyed that I totally upset his rhythm, he held my hand so tight that those very few non-visible veins on my hand started glowing red!

If someone holds your hand, that can bring in good and bad news. That morning I was about to get into the bus to complete my last leg of my journey to college. It was my cousin, who held my hand preventing me from entering the bus. That hand-holding brought in two news.  Bad news first for a change. Our great grandma had passed away. And that bad news totally overshadowed the good news that I didn’t have to attend classes that day.

Wedding day is when I had to hold my wife’s hand for such a long time, to take those three rounds in front of “homa”, fire. Earlier days, it was necessary, as both people would be in great fear, many a times they must be seeing each other for the first time. I feel that custom is still relevant even these days. A few odd people would have stared at you in “hand-holding” position in the previous instances prior to wedding, this would be the first time so many people in unison staring at what you are doing in approval, which will definitely increase the bonding between the two.

Have you seen anybody getting beaten up for lending hand for someone to hold? I had. In front of Tirumala temple. We were standing in the general queue for “darshan” and we reached near the outer entrance. There was another parallel, much shorter queue on our right reserved for differently-abled people, physically. Both queues suddenly got stuck, as some group of people got the preference, not because they were challenged by anything, just because they were VVIPs. Then this incident happened. A cop, who was checking people in the differently abled group for the genuineness, could not find any challenging, visible limb on one of them. Probably that was not the first time the cop had noticed this person! He slapped once the person who was pretending in that stooped position, and slapped many more times to the support person who was lending him a hand! 

Do lend your hand to those who need it. But, try to make sure that it is for a genuine cause, otherwise you might get slapped really badly. Even god will not be able to help you there.

Things go wrong for good

One after another, two mishaps have affected the Malaysian Airlines badly. They are at the verge of delisting. Murphy’s law, what else? “If anything can go wrong, it will”. Extremely unfortunate and sad incidents, no good to anybody.

When something goes wrong at times, we will have those memories for ever. That is why the laws which support the philosophy of everything that goes right at most of the times, never became as popular as Murphy ’s Law. We assume that occurrences of those right things are granted.

But sometimes, even things which go wrong, can turn out to be for good.

Yes, I had studied for PU. In Sacred Hearts College, Thevara – a place on the way to Fort Kochi from Ernakulam town. The Sacred Hearts College was run by orthodox christian management, which never allowed two hearts to come that closer! For example, the beautiful, vast backyard of the college from which one can enjoy the beauty of the backwaters was banned for us to venture out – by bunking our classes or otherwise.

I was extremely happy with that new environment though. Not because that the number of subjects to be studied was reduced by 50%, I never had that worry as I was good in mugging up things that I didn’t understand! It was primarily because of the existence of plenty of girlfriends; it was a big relief for me even though I had to travel by train for an hour, 10 minutes’ by walk from railway station to the bus stop and another 20 minutes of “packed” journey by bus to reach the college. It was a quantum change in my life. Being in the “Boys only” school for many years, where the only proof of existence of women in that academic institution was our 55 year old headmistress, that too with a rude face, the college looked like a heaven for me. Nothing went wrong for me in that area.

My dad kept on reminding me of submitting the application to avail considerable discount in my huge annual fees which ran into 3 digits. I kept on postponing it till the last date, primarily to avoid facing those “non-user-friendly” clerical staff. Finally I dragged my feet to the office that evening, collected the necessary form, filled it up and submitted. Without looking at my face, the clerk declared “Father’s signature required”! I was stunned. How much ever quick the bus, train and myself ran, I could manage to get my dad’s signature only by next day, which would be of no use by then. I strongly believed in values even in those days, so I didn’t want to forge my dad’s signature either.

With a heavy heart as I was walking out to catch the bus, one more wrong thing happened. The bus came on right time, which was unusual. I missed the bus. Next bus from the college was much later, only option left for me was to walk to the main road for around 2 KM to catch any bus coming from Fort Kochi.  As I was pondering how to tackle my dad, one of my friends came from behind with full of enthusiasm – obviously he had to be - unlike me, he did not have any problem with his father or his signature. I told him my sad state of affairs. “Fool, they want the signature of the principal, not that of your father”, hearing this from him, I realised the fact the entire staff and students used to call the principal “Father”, who was also a priest. I ran back to college with all the energy left and managed to get the principal’s signature on time and submit the form. The wrong doing of that bus driver by arriving right in time saved  me and my father from a lot of trouble which would have caused by “another father”!

Don’t we see some things go wrong while we are in a tour? Let me narrate one to convince you that I had many. We were on a trip to Mangalore & Udupi to visit temples and beaches. I was driving my Maruti Omni, the car with an intelligent design – engine being under the driver’s seat. To make the driver always alert by keeping vital part of his body warm! Like any other South Indian I decided to have an authentic, original Udupi masala dosa from a restaurant in Udupi itself. When in Udupi, be "Udupian", right? I parked the car in front of a restaurant and we all had delicious dosas. All the lingering of the good taste vanished, as my mouth became totally dry once I noticed that car was locked keeping the key inside the car itself. I hadn’t opted for that sophisticated “key-less”, remote lock option which would have been an over-kill for the Omni. As I was wondering what to do next, then I heard something nice from my wife – “It is I only who locked the side sliding window this morning; it might not have been locked fully”. May be due to lack of strength, may be due to the fear that the window might get damaged, she never used to get it right and window was never properly got into the lock position. I used to scold her generously for the same. Yes, she was right in saying that she did it wrongly this time too, that window opened all doors for us! Now you can imagine what I had to hear from my wife for the next half hour of our journey, those right things at the wrong time !!

"Urvasi sapa upakara" - King Arjuna would have struggled to be in disguise during that one year after many years of exile in the forest if he hadn't got that curse from Urvasi. Becoming an eunuch temporarily for an year actually had become a boon for the King.

Once we friends, three of us were returning to Milwaukee from Chicago. I was sitting at the back enjoying the music and digesting the non-spicy Indian food which I overate from the much spicier Devon Street! Needless to say my friend was driving at high speed in the left most lane, totally  ignoring my plea to drive a bit slower in the right lane. Suddenly we heard a loud noise, the car on our right lane, a bit ahead of us had swirled to the right-most lane which was empty. Its "right" tyre had burst. Luckily, it was not the left one. Had it been the left one, that car would have come to our lane, our car would have rammed into that.  I am not sure what would have happened to those in that "swirled" car. I know for sure neither of my friends in the front would have survived then to even blog later about my premature death due to sudden, immense fear!

Let’s believe that nothing will go wrong today and in coming days. If at all something goes wrong, we have that poor Murphy and his law to blame. Then we can wish that wrong may actually lead to something good for us. If that wish also does not come true, we still have something called fate to blame for to move on.

There are “three” kinds of things in this world. Things which we know that can go right, things which we know that can go wrong!!!!

Have a great day. Have fun.

Believable thinking

I had to think a few things this weekend, which prompted me to write this blog with no need of much thinking.

Early morning the motor stopped working. The one which makes lots of noise while increasing the potential energy of water that is lying low in the underground sump by pumping it into the overhead tank. Two things came to my mind – one, getting hold of a plumber is not that easy – two, whenever  he comes, it would be a matter of a half an hour for him to fix things which would cost a few hundreds.  I was wrong in the first count, the plumber was at my door-step in 10 minutes. I was not lucky in the second count as well; it took much more toll on me than I thought. First he replaced the foot valve, poured some water into the pump. Then he removed the pump and took into the nearby mechanic shop. He removed and tightened some nuts/bolts here and there and finally the motor started working after switching it off and on for several times. It didn’t end there. He volunteered himself to clean up the sump to remove all the dust to avoid any future problems. By the time he completed all the work, half day had elapsed with my wallet lighter by many more hundreds. 

When will my thinking stop, rather when will I start believing what all I think? I wanted to see how the water is falling into the overhead tank and by what force. Seeing is believing right? Without thinking too much I climbed that 8 foot tall platform where the tank was kept using a flimsy temp wooden ladder. Once I saw that everything was fine, then only I started thinking of climbing down ! My legs started trembling even before the  ladder started shaking ! After reaching at the bottom, I learnt one thing – better to believe certain things which you strongly think of.

Assume you are taking a class. You have given a complex problem to the students and asked them to think well before arriving at a solution. Somebody will start scratching his head. Somebody will bite the pen if not his own nails. Somebody will close one eye and look up in a slanted fashion. Somebody will close both his eyes. All these gestures are done primarily to stimulate the thoughts. The secondary aim of displaying this strange behaviour is to make you believe that they are really thinking.

When I was young my thinking was that I would grow tall. I worked towards it. In the absence of "Complan" like stuff, I over-ate whatever was available to have a “complete planned food”. I ran, jumped, hung twice a day from a tree branch. All attempts went nowhere, I didn’t grow anywhere! Those who know me or at least who have seen me know that I am not that tall. Those who had not met me for years together, just for your information, I haven’t grown taller an inch since then. If you have never seen me, and if you are an average human being, then you would never want to call me a  tall person ! Then I started believing and stopped thinking. Hitler was short. Sachin Tendulkar is short.  A R Rahman is short. Alexander the great, no idea but he must have been short!

This is a true story told to me by one of my friends. If you think I will not exaggerate this, you are absolutely right. If at all you think that my friend had exaggerated this, please don’t believe that either! He was drinking a cup of tea in his house, when they heard a loud noise, something had fallen. He ran outside. It was a coconut fell from one of their trees on to the road and a “rowdy” like person had picked it up and started walking. He very well knew he would not match with that rowdy in any of the parameters, still he shouted “hey, return that coconut to me. That belongs to us”. He thought his uncle who was also inside the house, who was on vacation from his job in armed forces would support him. Army uncle just sat inside while all this commotion happened, as if he was waiting for an order from his superior. My friend thought further provocation to the rowdy would cost him more than the cost of a coconut, which was damn cheap unlike these days!  What happened next was not at all in line with what his thinking was. “I found this near that culvert I will put it there only” saying this, the rowdy just came back a few yards, dropped the coconut there and vanished! 

“Don’t believe everything that you think” some great thinker has told this. Believe it or not, please do think well. But, if more and more people stop believing in the way you think, it is high time you changed that portion of your head which you normally scratch while thinking!