I should have known when mom got stuck in the elevator in the morning that the day would be interesting !! So Amma’s fear came true today. The elevator she took to go down in the morning, got stuck between the 9th and the 8th floor. She didn’t panic, but managed to ring the emergency call button and alerted the security guard. They managed to open the elevator doors, brought a chair and Amma climbed out – now she is no longer scared of the elevator, but I am for her :(. She is fine and completely unfazed which is great.
Then Krishnan and I went to the post office…. Ok I was dumb to put a deposit in a post office especially since Indian post offices continue to function like they did in the 1920’s not even the time we got our independence ! On Saturday we went to surrender the deposit and the clerk asked us to come on Monday to collect the cheque. He irritated me on Saturday by not letting me see what the accrued interest was on his computer. Anyhow, we were there promptly at 11 – the rain showers stopped just for us to step out and do our chores and reach our offices. The same clerk said, “wait, for your turn and go outside and come in that queue” – nothing wrong in what he said, except the agent sitting next to him had called us inside just like on Saturday and he hadn’t objected on Saturday nor he objected today ! So started a bit of heated argument with him, and we went outside and waited for him to scrutinise the four pages in front of him with great concentration !! He finally gave us the cheque and we were out of the place in 15 mins. Two things were obvious – Krishnan and I expect delays with every govt. department and we are already agitated even before we enter these places, two, post offices are really archaic.
The interesting day became a very busy day till in the afternoon a colleague of mine told me about a wrongdoing by another colleague and I started to wonder, how little we value our wonderful lives ! For momentary satisfaction we don’t realise the career damage we do – the Hindi proverb िवन।श क।ले विपरीत बुिध (when times are bad, your thinking also goes wrong) is so true. That is the only way to explain seemingly smart people make a complete fool of themselves. All we can do is watch for these times and allow someone more intelligent than us make a decision – or better still, think of the consequences of what you are about to do five years from now. I have a simple test for myself – can I look into my own eyes ? I have still gone ahead and did some stupid, some terrible things, but I get smarter every time.
Keep asking, standing in front of the mirror and look into your eyes, can you meet yourself ?