Being Victimized

Today it rained cats and dogs. Mussa was not happy. Not because he will not be able to work from home because of no power but because he was suffering from loose motions, sore throat, and fever.

What does that mean? A forced holiday down the drain. Only if Mussa had been feeling better he would have something in present and not lost down rain memory lane with the feeling of being victimized once more.

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It was 7:30 in the morning. Mussa and his cousin sister Amrita were on road to reach school on Saturday. Saturday is half day in school and missing the half day was worth a full holiday in school books of account. Our parent were good to calculate and said go to school.

Reaching school late will result in a good hard cane on the hand. Amrita was anxious to avoid it. As if Mussa was not. Amirta had landed Mussa in this situation by coming to bus stop 15 minutes late.

All usual friends (bus mate) had already left and some other's friends parent's were not calculative enough and had decided to let them enjoy the rains. So here was Mussa and Amrita waiting in heavy rains to reach school.

"Don't talk to strangers" a familiar phrase told by each parent to their kids. Amrita was already waving her thumb at a car coming towards the bus stop. She was about to violate the familiar phrase. After she talked to the person driving the car, she had already broken the second most dreaded phrase "Never travel with strangers alone".

Amrita and I sat in the car to get a lift to the school. Amrita justified, "anything is better than the cane". Mussa agreed on that and also justified that Mussa and Amrita does not make them alone. It is the stranger who should have thought of traveling with strangers (us) alone.

They reached the school gate at 7:50 am. They had time to run to the classroom. The school had a big campus which is good walk and stroll for people on time. Mussa was about to run when Amrita was just standing besides the car.

To Mussa's shock, Amrita let go of her umbrella and started running with the car as it departed. Mussa started running besides her not knowing why Amrita was running. More so even he had no idea why he was running. Rain was so heavy that the stranger in the car never knew that we were running with his car.

They finally stopped running when the car stopped at the signal. Amrita was in pain and she banged at the door. Mussa saw what was happening. Amrita had her last finger stuck in the door. Mussa tried to reach the front of the car to stop the stranger but he tripped on Amrita, lost his umbrella and he was lying flat on his stomach on the muddy road.

Mussa was trying to get up when the stranger came out of the car. He unlocked the door and freed Amrita. Stranger said, "Why, that was the loudest bang I ever heard". That is when Mussa realized that he had banged his tiffin box on the side of the car and created a huge dent. Two-way apology followed and they were running towards the school gate which was now a block away.

Mussa was ahead and then Amrita was ahead and then both finished the race by running into the class together. They won the race. They were Olympic runners. But not so good Mussa guessed as Amrita dashed into class teacher trying to decelerate and Mussa tripped for the second time on his sister and ended up giving a WWF forehand suplex to the class teacher who saw herself flying off the ground and hitting the wall.

Pin drop silence in the class treated them as the three victims go up on their feet. Two drenched student without umbrella in this heavy rain. To top it, Mussa with a brown shirt full of mud instead of standard white, teacher figured out what was wrong. Teacher slapped Mussa and said, "You devil, why were you running behind her. See how scared she is. You brat, I know you are the naughtiest student in the class but now your mischief have increased. Stand right here".

Teacher helped Amrita in her sit and checked if she was fine. Amrita nodded. Teacher removed the cane from the drawer and hit Mussa on his bare leg. Mussa screamed. That gave him a bonus hit. Then teacher looked at the time and gave him double bonus with 2 hits. All this while Amrita was quite. Mussa pleaded for mercy with his eyes expressing to Amrita to explain he was innocent. But she just smiled.

When Mussa had at least 6 shots of the cane on his legs and hands and teacher was about to let him go, Mussa gave a killer look to Amrita. Amrita started crying holding her last finger. Teacher looked at it and said, "See you brat, now who is answerable for this"
Half an hour and they were in principal's room with Mussa's parents and Amrita's parents braving the heavy rains. Teacher explained the complete story of a culprit Mussa victimizing Amrita.

Mussa screamed as usual in the room at the top of his lungs about his innocence. Amrita just smiled.

At home early from half day school, Mussa was standing in one place on the terrace as punishment, getting drenched in the heavy rains while Amrita was treated as a VIP getting hot tea and pakodas.

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Coming out of the memory lane, things are still the same. Here is Mussa, and Amrita had been changed to a forced holiday.

Caught in Lingo

What is Lingo? It is a term which I coined. Expansion of word 'Lingo' is lingering around and no where to go. I am sure many of us face this. Here are some of the lingos that I get caught in. Trying to get out of these lingos help me to either get into the same lingo or other better unknown form of new lingo.

Lingo 1
I am working out a plan on how something can be done. That is what I am supposed to do. After effectively delegating the work based on the plan thing start rolling. This is when lingo comes into play: the work is not upto the mark, or sometimes the person required is not available. Because of this the dates go hay wire. Dates haywire means problems. To get rid of the problem, take charge and do what I can for work delegated to other. By the time I get into one thing there is a new requirement that requires a plan. Now till either the new plan is created or the old lingo gets over, there is a complete mess. When the old lingo is over, the lingo for the new plan begins.
When will this lingo end? Experts say it is you yourself who needs to think and get out of it. Tell me in within these lingos, the experts have now put in another lingo for me. Where am I and what am I doing within lingos is what I am still struggling to find.

Lingo 2
Lingo within a lingo. In technicality it is a nested lingo. Macro plan that translates to micro. But within micro the nuances come to haunt me. Delegated micro leads to more nuances lingo. Why? Because the person working on it is deeply embedded in all nuance lingos not for one work but multiple work. Now with a nested lingo I sometimes not only address the nuance lingo but also get caught in the micro lingo. If I have to solve the nuance lingo I have to understand the micro lingo as well. So now with not macro but with micro and nuance the nested lingos traps me more than simple lingo. Why get into the nested lingo? Same common goal of getting work done on time. What happened to me? What am I doing? Do I understand what am I doing? Do the experts know what am I doing? Experts say, you are your own enemy. Kill the enemy within and there will be no lingos. What I feel is the delegated work not getting done is my responsibility. If I kill the enemy within myself and let the delegates do the delegated what delegates cannot do, am I not killing the final cause of delivering something on time? What am I struggling with? What am I killing? What is lingering within lingos is what I am trying to find.

Lingo 3
Lingo 1 and Lingo 2 in a statistically balanced count hits my complete balance. This is the overarching lingo. What am I doing? Where am I going? What is expected? What is reality? What is that I want to do? What is happening? Why is this the biggest lingo!!!

Experts say: this happens to everyone but one must come out of it. You have to do a self reflection to get to know what you will need to do to get over these lingos.
I say: where are your experience experts. If you have gone through it and know something why can't you help me reduce some of the lingo?
My mind says: yeah right. I have reached the threshold of my lingos so now I want to pass some lingos to experts who delegated me to do something.
The cycle is complete. We all are in lingo for something or the other and we knowingly or unknowingly are making others part of other lingos.

The Magical Dilemma - II

Mussa was confident that Shrikant and Savio will be able to complete everything in time after he had to spend 1 hour to use his mind in lateral way to explain how a 20 hour job can be completed in 4 hours flat. Shrikant was confident that the rest of the 10 minutes job will not take more than cooking a packet of Maggi.

After the 4 hours of fruitful work as explained by Mussa, when Shrikant explained to Savio what had to be done, they were both happy that another 2 minutes and this will be over.

“It is not possible”, I heard Savio speaking to Shrikant.

Savio had spent two hours instead of minutes of the ripe working time. Still there was no end to 2 minute job to complete and deliver the job. We were close to the end of day and soon everybody will be packing up to meet their family and friends and enjoy rest of what is left in the day.

Shrikant tells Mussa, “There is some problem that is leading us to stop the delivery today. We will look into it tomorrow and finish it. Savio is doing his best to complete it”

Mussa said, “The tough job of getting the output the way it was required was already complete. I already spent an hour explaining things to you so that we can deliver today. Why is the 2 minute job stretching to 2 hours? You can’t get it done”

Shrikant looked dejected and said, “Savio is really working hard on it”

Mussa was really frustrated with this response. Mussa was doing what Shrikant was supposed to do. He had already ended up helping him out and now with the sheer stupid reason for a small issue which Shrikant does not know, he wants to stop the delivery. Mussa in his fuming mood asks Shrikant to explain the issue. After listening to the issue, Mussa knew the answer to it. There was no need to even look at what Savio was doing. Mussa simply said, “Tell Savio, he is looking at the wrong thing and wring place, he needs to look at this thing in this place”

Within one minute, Savio was jumping out of his seat screaming “Eureka Eureka”. Shrikant smiled at Mussa and said, “Now we can deliver”. Mussa said, “What about testing for special case scenarios?”

Shrikant and Savio were both shocked at this request. They knew it was required, but they had not thought of it right from the beginning. Shrikant said,

“We will need at least 4 hours to check this.”

Savio added, “We are not sure what the special case scenarios can be”

Mussa was really feeling down. He screamed at himself for not doing this himself. He single handedly would have completed this application in 5 hours and here is his team that has effectively spent 8 hours till now and they were still 4 hours away. Mussa looked at the application on Savio’s machine. He said, “Add these two checks here and test. I am 100% confident it will work and you can finish this in 5 minutes.”

Savio is shocked. Shrikant is skeptical. Mussa is confident. After 5 minutes, Savio screams “Its Magic. It worked”

The delivery was made. Observing this complete episode was Komal, who approach Mussa and said,

“I want to be learn how you CAN do what you CAN do”

Mussa smiled at her and said, “My mind can THINK of what to do. My attitude can DO what my mind thinks. Inculcate this and you can do what I can do”

The Savior

"My mother needs to go to Surat", I heard my wife say from all the other things that I may have missed listening to. My mother-in-law was staying with us for a couple of days and we were supposed to drop her at her place which was just few blocks away from our house.

Don't know what struck me, I said, "We are not going to Surat to drop her"

My wife was furious at what I said. Definitely she was and I realized that even without looking at her because when I looked up I saw my mother-in-law sitting right in front of me. My wife came out of the kitchen and showed her furious face for the effect I had on her.

My mother-in-law was calm on what just transpired between her daughter and her husband. I was thinking what she was thinking: "This guy is really mad. Firstly he is engrossed in the newspaper that he is reading. Secondly he is not listening to what is being discussed. Thirdly he boards the train of talk without any thought".

On the contrary my mother-in-law told her daughter to calm down and supported me saying, "Of course not. But you will come to drop me to the station"

In the afternoon heat of summer, I was hunting for a rickshaw that can take us all to the station. After lot of cajoling, one of the fellows agreed. Reaching the station was one of the most adventurous rides than Esselworld. Rickshaw driver was good at maneuvering the rickshaw into each and very pothole he could find. I lost my temper and abused the rickshaw driver with foul words.

Again the complete episode of furiousness repeated on my wife's face. My mother-in-law again came to my rescue.

Reaching the station was just a beginning of our plight. I had to stand in a queue to get the ticket for my mother-in-law. That was fine with me. But other people were not so happy about it, I guess. Every now and then somebody asked me whether this is the right window to get a ticket to go to some place I did not know, or would this train go to that particular destination, or would this window issue a return ticket to travel within Mumbai. Out of the 50 people in the queue, I was the only approachable gentleman. After these many questions, I was in serious doubt if I was standing in the right queue in front of the right window to buy the ticket to Surat.

Suspense ended when I finally got the ticket in my hand. Feeling the victory over the small battle, we started moving to the platform where the train would arrive. While we were waiting for the train to arrive, I said "I hope the ride is worth the ticket we bought for you, mother-in-law".

My mother-in-law smiled at me and said, "Yes, it will be". My wife was not even trying to talk. She would have exploded with the lava of wrath (words or paragraphs is something she would be in control of) on me if she had opened her mouth.

The train finally arrived. The First Class boogey was in front us. I looked at my wife. My wife looked at her mother and my mother-in-law looked at me. The ticket was for a general class without reservation. We started running to the end of the train where the general class boogey was.

In total there were there are three bogeys in which anybody who had a valid ticket can get in for a ride. When we reached there, there was commotion. I could see a funnel of people trying to get in. All the three bogeys had large funnels. Zeroing in one of the smallest funnel, I told my mother-in-law, "Board this one".

Mother-in-law scurried to get into the bogey.

A fat man with an equally fat family of 4 was struggling hard to help his family members to get into that bogey. He was not successful in doing this because the baggage his family was carrying was making it impossible for any of the family member to get in. This is when I realized why the funnel was small. I shouted and abused the fat man with foul words. This time though not my wife but the fat man became furious. He streamed a list of choicest foul words to me. The other family members decided to support him and also added to the some more unique ones to his vocabulary. This infuriated me and I used my most special dictionary of filthy and offensive words. This was to help my ego: “No one in this world can beat me in this area of my expertise”

The fat man and the family members were even better than me. I had to accept it. Their vocabulary was the same but the rhythm and synchronization between the family members pronouncing and hitting me back with those words was really like an orchestra with chorus.

In the verbal battle which ensued, I had lost all sense of where I was and what was I here for. I could see the train move an inch. Then it moved 2 more and then slowly it was crawling. I came to my senses. What I saw and heard shocked me. Everybody in the bogey was clapping and cheering me. The funnel of passengers had disappeared into the bogey with the fat man and his family still on the platform battling with me.

My mother-in-law was there in the bogey cheering me with others for what I had accomplished. For her and the co-passengers who made it into the bogey I was the savior.

The Magical Dilemma - I

The silent night was killing the instinct to work. The body needed the rest after the hard day's work. Mussa was puffing on the last remains of the smoke stick that he had promised to leave. Mussa thought to himself, “Nothing new. I have left it so often. I am sure this is not the last one for the life but just for today”.

Thoughts were interrupted by Raghu who shouted, “This is not working out”. A delivery getting stalled for lack of team members at that hour to complete. Mussa has this tendency to check if he can solve or help on something. That day was not different.

Raghu explained the problem best what he could make out. His judgement of brute strength approach was pushing the deliver not for a day but for a couple of days.

Mussa felt the need to help not because this was the simplest job that client had given for the first time but because this for the first real client after a long time. To add to this, Mussa had worked out how the complete project can be technically be handled.

Instead of ignoring the problem and going home, which was right to do since this was not his role, he left his personal commitment and opened his mind. Mind can be used to think faster than execute with hands. A minute of thought and an hour of hands on, Mussa explained how the work can be done without team members.

Raghu could not believe his ears. In his estimate of couple of days, the scheme of what Mussa suggested was impossible for him to comprehend.

Raghu said, “This is magic”. Surely it was for him. Another three hours and we all reached home with the client receiving the delivery.

Mussa did like the magic trick he performed. But then not only Raghu but others started asking for magic tricks. Successful magic lead them to believe that Mussa was a magician and can solve anything.

Mussa did realize that this was leading him to spend time on what he was not supposed to do. The faith in the magic kept increasing as Mussa rolled down the problems to solutions. The thing Mussa always questioned to others was “Why can't you do this?”

“We don't have the knowledge about this” was the standard answer. Mussa always counter argued saying,

“It is not the knowledge that you seek. It is the mind that needs to open and think laterally to come to a solution”

Days became years but the magic still goes on. Who is to blame? The magician who performs the magic or the crowd which sees magic, which is nothing but trick of mind.