‘Its not what you think... I..’
‘You don’t have to say a thing... I saw it with my eyes’, she retorted and.... he kept quite.
How many times has this happened. You want to say something, convince somebody that what they think is not correct, but then the person says ‘I saw it!!’ and you don’t have an answer.. After all seeing is believing !!! We see something and then our mind builds on it making its own conclusions. Isn’t it the way it works and why not after all we saw it ...right ...
Let me tell you a couple of anecdotes that my old colleagues once shared with me..
One is surely a liar.
Once a city witnessed a gruesome hit and run case. A speeding car crushed a rebelling union leader. The morning newspaper quoted an eyewitness saying ‘a black car crushed the man and sped away, I saw it!!!’. That evening the local channel telecast an interview of a lady who around the same time was trying to cross the road. She confidently said ... ‘I saw it.. a white car hit the man..’
How can this be, somebody is trying to protect the culprit the rich industrialist whom the union leader was at loggerheads with..
One of them is surely a liar.. bought by the culprit... they are trying to distract the investigators!!!
He is such a cheapo.
He was the star salesman of the company, touring twenty days a month visiting his market. After the dust and toil of field visits, company allowed him the luxury of a star hotel to rest and rejuvenate. Feasting heavily on the complementary breakfast is one routine that he never misses. There’s another one that he always does. When he checks out, he makes sure that he has picked and packed all the toiletries that are kept for him to use. Those bonsai soaps, shampoos, talcum powder sachets.. he would miss none. ‘I have seen it when I am on tours with him.... such a cheapo.. and you know what, he makes a hundred grands a month.. even then...such a cheapo ’ said a colleague of his...
Such a cheapo he is!!!
Isn’t our interpretation correct? One of the two witnesses is a liar trying to protect somebody and our star salesman is a magpie, trying to stash every penny. Or is it...
All of us are like this. We believe what we see, what we hear... provided we like to believe it. Its because ‘we’ see it and ‘we’ hear it and ‘we’ cant go wrong. We presume our perception based on the primary inputs received from our sensory faculties as gospel truth. It is not limited to the inconsequential happenings of our day to day lives but spreads to the more serious undertakings such as personal relationships, professional equations etc. We see our close friend chatting animatedly with a neighbour with whom we had a fight and then seeds of doubt creep in.. Is he really my friend or he swears allegiance to our enemy camp? You see your colleague come out your boss’s cabin and then your boss calls for you to give a piece of his mind... I know its him... He has filled boss’s ears against me.. I saw him walk out of the cabin... I know... Isn’t it?
Now back to the anecdotes..
After a week of rumours, allegations and conspiracy theories, the police arrested a college dude for drunken reckless driving causing the death of the union leader. He was driving a chequered car with jazzy white paint on one side and metallic black on the other. The dude was on a high trying some of his drifting skills when he overstepped the pedal crushing the poor man to death... Wasn’t one of the witnesses a liar? We knew it right???
One day after returning from the tour a colleague followed our cheapo as he filled his loot into a bag and set out. The chase took him to a huge compound with a rusted gate that seemed to house an old dilapidated mansion. Across the gate was written in bold letters.. ‘Helping Hearts – house for destitute ’. Our cheapo donated all his loot there. He does this every time when he returns from his field visits. ‘When I pay for the stay in the star hotel, I pay for the toiletries also... why should I leave them there? I might as well pick it and give away to the needy’... he told his colleague. Wasn’t our protagonist a cheapo... we knew it right???
This is the fact in most of the cases. We are ready to give more credence to what ‘we’ see and ‘we’ hear. The faith in our fellow beings, friends, relatives, society... everything can be doubted. What we see is right, what we hear is gospel. Belief somehow seems to be a prehistoric adage... Seeing is believing ... or is it????
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Muscat- Magic, Masti, Mwaaaaah... Part II
And the flight landed. I don’t know why but I felt like cheering out loud, like the passengers of those low cost East European Airlines do every time a flight lands safely. But I didn’t dare move, you are in the Middle East for heaven’s sake, you don’t mess there. “Earn your Riyals and move on” my friends had advised me. So finally here I was, the dream destination, goes without saying it was just a dream an Oasis which was nothing close to what I had imagined.
The Airport was little larger than the Shantinagar Satellite Bus Stand and it had planes ‘if only you could call them so’ parked haphazardly. My Passport doesn’t boast of many entry / exit stamps, but I have had my share of domestic travel and I must say, the Sultan Qaboos Airport was among the smallest and least crowded that I had ever seen. Anyways, now that I only had a one way ticket, I decided to follow the de-planing passengers and open the next chapter in my book of destiny.
Middle East they say and I realize has this odd and consistent thing. Whenever anybody returns from their home country, the first couple of days are spent in absolute depression, no matter how long the person has been abroad. Believe me, it is a fact. In the two and half years I stayed out, I have come to India more than 7 times. That adds up to coming home once every four months. Still every time I land back at the Muscat Airport, I feel so low, not home sick, but a feeling of loneliness as if I have lost something. When you come out of airport, you literally search for reasons that could take you back, like you pray that your Visa is expired, or your driver has not come to pick you up or at least US has attacked Iran. But as always, when you expect something goes wrong, it never does. Your Visas are intact, Driver is at the Airport before time and US is more interested in Af-pak. You have no way other than following the driver.
Another thing peculiar to Middle East, at least to the place and company that I worked for is that one thing of yours, that you never get to keep is your passport. I had heard of it, but thats for uneducated labourers, I am an Engineer with a post graduation in International Business I thought. “Passport please”, commanded the driver. “Why, what, who the hell...” all these questions came to my mind. “Here” I said handing him my prized possession meekly. I would get it back the evening I fly out of the country and till then it would be in the company locker for what they call ‘SAFE CUSTODY’. Who the hell would be interested in my passport, I thought. Anyways, you don’t ask questions, especially when you are in Middle East and that too when you have just handed over your passport to a complete stranger. The driver had seen many Prasheels and half way through the drive, he said “even the company MD’s passports are in the company locker”. Must say that was a consolation.
The drive was un-eventful, so was the scenery if only you could call it so. Only thing exciting was the Camry Car that had come to pick me up. I had seen many posh cars, but a Camry coming to pick me up was flattering. This high however didn’t last long as a quarter of the taxis that plied in the city were, I found out- Camry. Fighting my loneliness I reached my accommodation, a leased building of six floors. Each floors had four flats fully furnished with all amenities, bed, A/C, Sofa, TV, Fridge, Washing Machine, attached bathrooms with hot and cool water, bath tub., nothing short of a three star facility. The top floor had pantry that served veg and non veg food cooked by company’s cooks. The driver introduced me to the care taker and the care taker lead me to my flat.
All employees of Saud Bahwan Group are provided accommodation. Some get villas, some furnished houses, some stacked in rooms that resemble poultry farms, all based on whats written on the Visa that allowed you inside the country. I had a single room with attached bath furnished with a TV, Sofa, Bed and Fridge that could conveniently take in a full grown ostrich. Dropping my stuff in the room the driver drove me to the office.
Thus began a very interesting phase in my life. Finishing the HR formalities I was escorted by to what would be my abode for the next 29 months of my life- my office.
Ford is advertised as the Largest Selling American Car in Oman, but an annual number of 1200 units in a market of 75,000 does not in any way do justice to the tall claim (not that its a false one, the other American Company GM sold 1180 cars that year). So its office, my office was well... uninspiring to say the least!!! A dungeon on the first floor of the Ford showroom that had files piled all over, the old carpet had a shade of brown that deceives you into thinking it was matched to the mahogany furniture. An office that had a lift with only one floor to service, no stairs and no fire exit. They say the President of the company once used to operate out of this office and the over sized bathroom and the remains of what was once rich furniture do make you believe the hearsay. ‘What am I doing here?’ From a proud Area Sales Manager for the sixth (must admit it was seventh back then) largest automobile company in the world to a Product Executive for a dealer who sells 1200 cars a year! I never hated myself more.
I hated the office on day one and I hated it till about 2 months then on. Then I fell in love with it. Not because it grew on me, but because the dungeon gave me an ideal den to bury myself, far from the nagging senior management. Once in the office, it was like being on an island that somehow didn’t find a place in ‘maps of the world’, unexposed, hidden, cool and free. This is the place where I would spend 325 days every year, the other 40 being in India.
A day in my life
Life is easy in that part of the world. At least it was so for me. My previous stint at the Hyundai Motors’ West Regional Office in Mumbai was, well back breaking to say the least. I used to slog in office from 7.45 AM to 8 PM. Add one and half hours of to and fro travel with a local train journey from Borivali to Mumbai Central and back six days a week and you have a tortured soul who will be ready to take up an assignment in Tora Bora. So when I had this job that required me to reach office at 8 only to go back home at 1 PM for a 2 hour siesta was heaven. I would then be back to office at 4 for a 3 hour work. The Air conditioned coaster and later my Ford Focus made the 15 min travel a pleasure.
Coming up .... ‘A Day in My Life.. Contd’, ‘LTFL Policy’ ‘License to Live’, ‘Friends are for Life’, ‘Dance Bar’, ‘Chastity Preserved’...
The Airport was little larger than the Shantinagar Satellite Bus Stand and it had planes ‘if only you could call them so’ parked haphazardly. My Passport doesn’t boast of many entry / exit stamps, but I have had my share of domestic travel and I must say, the Sultan Qaboos Airport was among the smallest and least crowded that I had ever seen. Anyways, now that I only had a one way ticket, I decided to follow the de-planing passengers and open the next chapter in my book of destiny.
Middle East they say and I realize has this odd and consistent thing. Whenever anybody returns from their home country, the first couple of days are spent in absolute depression, no matter how long the person has been abroad. Believe me, it is a fact. In the two and half years I stayed out, I have come to India more than 7 times. That adds up to coming home once every four months. Still every time I land back at the Muscat Airport, I feel so low, not home sick, but a feeling of loneliness as if I have lost something. When you come out of airport, you literally search for reasons that could take you back, like you pray that your Visa is expired, or your driver has not come to pick you up or at least US has attacked Iran. But as always, when you expect something goes wrong, it never does. Your Visas are intact, Driver is at the Airport before time and US is more interested in Af-pak. You have no way other than following the driver.
Another thing peculiar to Middle East, at least to the place and company that I worked for is that one thing of yours, that you never get to keep is your passport. I had heard of it, but thats for uneducated labourers, I am an Engineer with a post graduation in International Business I thought. “Passport please”, commanded the driver. “Why, what, who the hell...” all these questions came to my mind. “Here” I said handing him my prized possession meekly. I would get it back the evening I fly out of the country and till then it would be in the company locker for what they call ‘SAFE CUSTODY’. Who the hell would be interested in my passport, I thought. Anyways, you don’t ask questions, especially when you are in Middle East and that too when you have just handed over your passport to a complete stranger. The driver had seen many Prasheels and half way through the drive, he said “even the company MD’s passports are in the company locker”. Must say that was a consolation.
The drive was un-eventful, so was the scenery if only you could call it so. Only thing exciting was the Camry Car that had come to pick me up. I had seen many posh cars, but a Camry coming to pick me up was flattering. This high however didn’t last long as a quarter of the taxis that plied in the city were, I found out- Camry. Fighting my loneliness I reached my accommodation, a leased building of six floors. Each floors had four flats fully furnished with all amenities, bed, A/C, Sofa, TV, Fridge, Washing Machine, attached bathrooms with hot and cool water, bath tub., nothing short of a three star facility. The top floor had pantry that served veg and non veg food cooked by company’s cooks. The driver introduced me to the care taker and the care taker lead me to my flat.
All employees of Saud Bahwan Group are provided accommodation. Some get villas, some furnished houses, some stacked in rooms that resemble poultry farms, all based on whats written on the Visa that allowed you inside the country. I had a single room with attached bath furnished with a TV, Sofa, Bed and Fridge that could conveniently take in a full grown ostrich. Dropping my stuff in the room the driver drove me to the office.
Thus began a very interesting phase in my life. Finishing the HR formalities I was escorted by to what would be my abode for the next 29 months of my life- my office.
Ford is advertised as the Largest Selling American Car in Oman, but an annual number of 1200 units in a market of 75,000 does not in any way do justice to the tall claim (not that its a false one, the other American Company GM sold 1180 cars that year). So its office, my office was well... uninspiring to say the least!!! A dungeon on the first floor of the Ford showroom that had files piled all over, the old carpet had a shade of brown that deceives you into thinking it was matched to the mahogany furniture. An office that had a lift with only one floor to service, no stairs and no fire exit. They say the President of the company once used to operate out of this office and the over sized bathroom and the remains of what was once rich furniture do make you believe the hearsay. ‘What am I doing here?’ From a proud Area Sales Manager for the sixth (must admit it was seventh back then) largest automobile company in the world to a Product Executive for a dealer who sells 1200 cars a year! I never hated myself more.
I hated the office on day one and I hated it till about 2 months then on. Then I fell in love with it. Not because it grew on me, but because the dungeon gave me an ideal den to bury myself, far from the nagging senior management. Once in the office, it was like being on an island that somehow didn’t find a place in ‘maps of the world’, unexposed, hidden, cool and free. This is the place where I would spend 325 days every year, the other 40 being in India.
A day in my life
Life is easy in that part of the world. At least it was so for me. My previous stint at the Hyundai Motors’ West Regional Office in Mumbai was, well back breaking to say the least. I used to slog in office from 7.45 AM to 8 PM. Add one and half hours of to and fro travel with a local train journey from Borivali to Mumbai Central and back six days a week and you have a tortured soul who will be ready to take up an assignment in Tora Bora. So when I had this job that required me to reach office at 8 only to go back home at 1 PM for a 2 hour siesta was heaven. I would then be back to office at 4 for a 3 hour work. The Air conditioned coaster and later my Ford Focus made the 15 min travel a pleasure.
Coming up .... ‘A Day in My Life.. Contd’, ‘LTFL Policy’ ‘License to Live’, ‘Friends are for Life’, ‘Dance Bar’, ‘Chastity Preserved’...
Friday, March 19, 2010
Muscat – Magic, Masti, Mwaaaaah….
Couple of month’s back I had to back-pack for this whirl-wind tour of God’s own country. I don’t know why, but my friends usually choose the same day or at best subsequent days to get married. Perhaps their way of testing who my loyalties are towards! Anyways, it puts you in this strange corner where you not only have to think about a valid excuse for a longer leave but also one for not attending one of the weddings or (if you manage to plan and attend both) even worse excusing yourself to leave early after showing your sleep ridden, fatigued face. One such ordeal took me hopping across seven cities of Kerala over a period of two days.. well you may say technically Kerala doesn’t have seven CITIES… but who’s ever cared for technicalities!!!
During this ‘hop-skip & jump –ethelon’ when my bus was in the middle of nowhere heading towards somewhere, my mind started wandering. All the various places, big and small that I have ever frequented started waltzing on my cerebral arena. Think of it.. all places that you have ever visited in your lifetime, all cities, towns, villages, hamlets. And in my not so long lifetime (I wish it were but many would otherwise!!), I’ve visited quite a few. Well nothing un-natural, a jaded mind finds its own way of entertaining itself!!! But what interested me was the thought that followed.
My mind, as jobless as I was, started to compare the different places, as if to find out the best among them. My father’s Central Govt service made the adjudicator’s role that much more complex, what with him and us packing our bags to a new place once every thirty six new moons!!!
That being the case the race to top of the list of best places began. I am impartial, at least I pretend to be… so my being a Mallu couldn’t or wouldn’t shift the scales in the favor of the so called CITIES of Kerala. Hence began a sojourn down the memory lanes, across the meadows of Pollachi to the waste lands of Kutch, across the un-ending chawls of Dharavi to the high rises of Dubai, across the humidness of Chennai to the chill of Mount Abu. Each place, each city, each road, each person had a story to recount.
Have you ever thought of it… the best place you have ever been to! No, not the most beautiful or exotic, nor the dream destination, just the normal place where you would like to return, say fifty years from today if the place was still the same, with the same lanes, same shops, same markets, same people, same friends, same enemies. Is there one such place you can think of?
Coimbatore is a city that I like very much. I have spent two invaluable years of my life there and if I was Chetan Bhagat, my ‘Two States’ would have been based there. The city, its people, the love-hate relationships that I developed, the foes turned friends that I cherish to this day make me nostalgic. I have always wanted to return to that place… to the open air college canteen for the sugar-less tea (yeah.. they are highly health conscious !!), to the Caramel bakery for their exquisite cream bun with added sweet when the girls from the nearby medical college are sitting a gape away, to the Ramu’s bar that serves more of touchings (for all you boozilliterates, that means a side dish!) than the actual drink, to the auntie’s tea shop across the road for the mid-night teas. But somehow it was not the place.. over the last six years, while I have wished I could go there, I haven’t really missed it !
I have done crazy things with my life and crazier things with my career. I was this young (yes at one point I too looked young!) and influential (of course…my Regional Manager had hand picked me and moved me to this new assignment, nobody dare mess with me, I am the boss’s boy!) Area Sales Manager of this leading automobile company. Learning the tricks and thoroughly enjoying myself I was, when I don’t know why, but I decided to apply for this job in the desert country, perhaps I was searching for my oasis.
And before I realized I was on a plane to this no man’s land… Middle East is the happening place dude, the cloud kissing buildings across the Sheikh Zayed road are a testament to it !!! Little did I know that Sheikh Zayed road was 450 km from this hamlet called Muscat the capital of Oman. They say Sindbad the Sailor set sail from Oman and now I know the reason why!!!
One hour after the flight took off I was scanning the surrounding for the mystical Arabic country, but all I could see was endless wasteland of cottony cloud. I stared and stared till my eyes could stare no more and I didn’t realize when I dozed. Jumping to attention when the flight attendant announced ‘fasten seat belts, seats up-right and tray table closed’ I continued my gaze. From the half-open windows of the Gulf Air flight all I could still see was endless wastelands of barren dunes and rocks, as if some mega construction was happening and the contractor had carelessly unloaded ship loads of sand across. The only high-rises my eyes could distinguish were at the max a three or four storey structures a la over-sized villas. I told myself, this is not it. This is some small town before we land in Muscat; the magical Muscat is some distance away. And then the flight landed!!!
End of Part 1....
Dedicated to you Shail, who brought back the memories of Muscat... not that I forgot them !!!
During this ‘hop-skip & jump –ethelon’ when my bus was in the middle of nowhere heading towards somewhere, my mind started wandering. All the various places, big and small that I have ever frequented started waltzing on my cerebral arena. Think of it.. all places that you have ever visited in your lifetime, all cities, towns, villages, hamlets. And in my not so long lifetime (I wish it were but many would otherwise!!), I’ve visited quite a few. Well nothing un-natural, a jaded mind finds its own way of entertaining itself!!! But what interested me was the thought that followed.
My mind, as jobless as I was, started to compare the different places, as if to find out the best among them. My father’s Central Govt service made the adjudicator’s role that much more complex, what with him and us packing our bags to a new place once every thirty six new moons!!!
That being the case the race to top of the list of best places began. I am impartial, at least I pretend to be… so my being a Mallu couldn’t or wouldn’t shift the scales in the favor of the so called CITIES of Kerala. Hence began a sojourn down the memory lanes, across the meadows of Pollachi to the waste lands of Kutch, across the un-ending chawls of Dharavi to the high rises of Dubai, across the humidness of Chennai to the chill of Mount Abu. Each place, each city, each road, each person had a story to recount.
Have you ever thought of it… the best place you have ever been to! No, not the most beautiful or exotic, nor the dream destination, just the normal place where you would like to return, say fifty years from today if the place was still the same, with the same lanes, same shops, same markets, same people, same friends, same enemies. Is there one such place you can think of?
Coimbatore is a city that I like very much. I have spent two invaluable years of my life there and if I was Chetan Bhagat, my ‘Two States’ would have been based there. The city, its people, the love-hate relationships that I developed, the foes turned friends that I cherish to this day make me nostalgic. I have always wanted to return to that place… to the open air college canteen for the sugar-less tea (yeah.. they are highly health conscious !!), to the Caramel bakery for their exquisite cream bun with added sweet when the girls from the nearby medical college are sitting a gape away, to the Ramu’s bar that serves more of touchings (for all you boozilliterates, that means a side dish!) than the actual drink, to the auntie’s tea shop across the road for the mid-night teas. But somehow it was not the place.. over the last six years, while I have wished I could go there, I haven’t really missed it !
I have done crazy things with my life and crazier things with my career. I was this young (yes at one point I too looked young!) and influential (of course…my Regional Manager had hand picked me and moved me to this new assignment, nobody dare mess with me, I am the boss’s boy!) Area Sales Manager of this leading automobile company. Learning the tricks and thoroughly enjoying myself I was, when I don’t know why, but I decided to apply for this job in the desert country, perhaps I was searching for my oasis.
And before I realized I was on a plane to this no man’s land… Middle East is the happening place dude, the cloud kissing buildings across the Sheikh Zayed road are a testament to it !!! Little did I know that Sheikh Zayed road was 450 km from this hamlet called Muscat the capital of Oman. They say Sindbad the Sailor set sail from Oman and now I know the reason why!!!
One hour after the flight took off I was scanning the surrounding for the mystical Arabic country, but all I could see was endless wasteland of cottony cloud. I stared and stared till my eyes could stare no more and I didn’t realize when I dozed. Jumping to attention when the flight attendant announced ‘fasten seat belts, seats up-right and tray table closed’ I continued my gaze. From the half-open windows of the Gulf Air flight all I could still see was endless wastelands of barren dunes and rocks, as if some mega construction was happening and the contractor had carelessly unloaded ship loads of sand across. The only high-rises my eyes could distinguish were at the max a three or four storey structures a la over-sized villas. I told myself, this is not it. This is some small town before we land in Muscat; the magical Muscat is some distance away. And then the flight landed!!!
End of Part 1....
Dedicated to you Shail, who brought back the memories of Muscat... not that I forgot them !!!
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