If the world was ruled and run by gals

Serendipity is a great thing. It strikes at the most unexpected time. The following ideas and points are a result of my vivid imagination and a consequence of my conversations with my friends. If girls were to rule and run the world what would it be like. Just a few points which come to my mind:

1. Baby pink to be made national colour.
2. All houses to be painted pink with flower patterns.
3. Fashion spending to replace defence spending in budget.
4. Economies of countries would collapse as the government would begin to feed stray animals for free.
5. Boys to be admitted to attitude correctional facilities from their birth where they would be taught to cry and would be trained to watch epic movies such as '51 first dates' and 'When Harry met Sally'. No schools for the boys.
6. Metal and hard rock to be banned and songs by Boyzone and Westlife to be sung at all solemn occasions.
7. All big electronics companies would be taken over by Archies and Hallmark.
8. Teddy Bear to be the national symbol.
9. Words like 'manly', 'macho' and 'muscular' to be deemed unconstitutional.
10. Olympics to stop any sport involving contact or exertion. Such sports to be swapped with games such as fashion shows and model hunts. The most coveted prize would be for the game 'barbie doll decoration'.
11. Instead of Gold medals the winner would get a day of shopping at a shopping street of their choice.
12. Separate constitution for boys and girls. The boys'  constitution to have only fundamental duties and no fundamental rights.
13. All shops and outlets no matter what they sell would be allowed to carry on business only if they have the latest Louis Vuitton, Prada, Jimmy Choo and Gucci brochures on display.
14.  Boys' study syllabus to include knowledge on female accessories and greater understanding of colours and their shades.
15. The names of weekdays (viz. Monday, Tuesday, ...) to be replaced by more expressive day names like 7th February to be called Rose day, 9th February to be called Chocolate day, 14th Feb to be called Valentine's Day, etc.
16. Male graduate students to be quizzed on these day names to be able to get their degrees.
17. All offices, institutions and public places to have fashion accessory shops and it would be mandatory to have huge mirrors at all places.
18. Any male driving within a 2 km. radius of a female driver will automatically be booked for rash and negligent driving. 
19. All geared automobiles, especially motorcycles to be banned. Companies can produce only gearless motor-vehicles. Two wheeler companies to produce only scooters.
20. All parking spaces to have 20 m. clearance on front and back after each vehicle slot.
21. All offices to have mandatory makeup breaks after every 1 hr.
22. All mining efforts to be directed towards important and useful things like gold, diamond, silver and platinum. Mining of dirty things like coal, iron ore, etc. to be made illegal.
23. Along with Financial management and marketing management, all MBA colleges to run compulsory courses on Face and Hair Management.
24. Karvachauth and Teej to be made national holidays.
25. All Hindu unmarried girls would be allowed 16 or 32 Mondays off from their workplaces or schools depending on their requirements.
26. Death penalty and life imprisonment to be replaced by mandatory daily walks among friends and social gatherings wearing poorly fitted and ill conceived dresses, and a prohibition on applying makeup.
27. Chicken and fish killing would be banned, still food outlets would be expected to dish out the bucketfuls and chicken wings when ordered.

(Disclaimer: The above statements are made in humour and any damage or harm caused to the physical, mental or material well-being of anyone is unintended and deeply regretted.)

Confessions - to do or not to do

Case in point

A husband comes home and finds his wife waiting for him. The children throng him as soon as he enters the house. The wife asks about his day and gets him breakfast with the children merrily playing in the background. The two have their usual conversation over the cup of hot tea. These few oft repeated words of concern and affection is what keeps the man going. The wife is happy to see her husband back after a long day at work. He has been a great husband and a wonderful father and she is so lucky to have him in her life, she often tells herself.

Cut to some time in the future:

The husband comes back as usual from work late in the evening. The wife brings him tea and cookies. She tries to start a conversation but he seems a bit quiet today. His wandering gaze seems to suggest some thought going on in his mind. He seems uninterested and on some other train of thought. Something is not right is what the wife thinks but then it might just be the pressure of work. He's been awfully strained these past days. But even at the dinner table there was an eerie silence. Something was not right. Something definitely is amiss. Then late at bedtime the husband is wide awake deep in his thoughts though pretending to read a book. Suddenly he turns to her and looks at her. She looks at him intently and is waiting to hear him out, as she has always had. It is this love, care and affection which gives the guy the courage to speak out to her. He musters all his strength and says that he wants to tell her something. He tells her about an affair of long back and one evening of flawed judgement hoping that it being a thing of the past the wife would understand. He tries to explain that something was wrong that night and he was not himself. He never wanted to but it happened. He was trying to explain everything but his lexicon has suddenly seemed to desert him. The ever eloquent and convincing Mr. Charming was today not finding words fit enough to express his grief and more so his guilt. The countenance of the wife had melted into a tearful glut. He had never seen her like this. Even on the death of  her beloved father she had somehow managed to keep herself together. But today it was different, starkly different. She was deluged in her own tears. The night passed without a wink of sleep or even a word exchanged. The next morning things had changed. Their life had changed. The usual clinging voice of his wife was nowhere to be heard. 

It was very different from that day on and there was much more silence between them. The days and nights seemed to linger on much longer. He would recall the time when he just could not have enough time to be at home although he was spending much more of his time at home then than he's now. The workplace had become much more bearable these days and somehow he preferred to be there than at home.

Any thoughts

I have always failed to understand the true reason behind the changed dynamics in the relations after a confession made in confidence. The person confessing has enough faith in the psychological stability and trust in the relation that he's willing to take the risk and absolve himself of the guilt he's been carrying all the while. This is not to in anyway say that his actions had been right in the first place (I want to make that clear in the very beginning). Still, he thinks that his partner would understand that what had happened was sporadic or incidental and won't ever happen again. Mistakes happen and he's willing to pay for that but the least he expects his partner to do is to understand him.

From the perspective of the woman, the man has broken a vow. She has left everything for him and has made his life hers. She has given him her everything including her best years of life. She was a successful professional too but had taken to be a housewife so that she could support him, make a home out of a house for him and for him to have a family. She could have been out there. She was successful. She was growing in her career faster than him. She had a friend circle which anyone would vie for. She had given it all up for him and his love. What had she asked in return? Nothing much except that what he had got from her, complete trust and faithfulness.

Both are right in their own thoughts, then who is wrong? Is the woman more perturbed by the one-sided breach of contract by the man? She has lost out on all the fun and frollick just to be with him. She has lost out  on the best times of her life. Is she more angry about her lost opportunities than she is about the man's actions?

Life and relations are complex. There is not one certain answer. And certainly, in the above case the gender could have been reversed, as is quite common in today's world. What would have been the situation then?

These questions are intriguing to me. Hope to have some comments by you guys.

By the way the thoughts came to me after watching the movie Masoom (old one). A great flick. Please do write in some comments. I'll be waiting.

SM

Earning less than Rs.1000 a month: You ain't poor

What has India come to. In a country which boasts of being the most sought after market in the world and which has a GDP of US$1.6 trillion the poor has been defined as someone earning Rs.28 a day. Which is not even a $1 a day. Inflation has been at an all time high for the past 2-3 years. Cost of living and basic articles has been spiralling upwards and in the wake of all this comes this definition of the poor in India. Pitiable and shameful to say the least. The government is more engrossed in its domestic fire-fighting within the coalition than its job of framing the policies for public welfare. The multi-party system though leads to representation of all the voices but in India's case has only aggravated the policy paralysis where the government is not able to take any decisive action and all its acts are stymied by the parties within its ranks. The situation is critical and needs urgent response and action. I don't propose any solution but certainly the issues are imminent. SM

New beginning - Researcher in the Making

Well Friends,
After over a year in the industry and some toil to get admission to a good Ph.D. program I've finally got admission to a prestigious college in India. Will pursue my research in Marketing with an aim to benefit the industry through my work. Have learnt a lot about life in the time when I was without job and was trying for some good opening. One generally tends to learn more from failures than success. Success gives you a confidence and a will to do things but it is failure which teaches you about life and how to deal with it.

SM

Warren Buffet - Collection

A rare collection of Articles and reviews on The Sage of Omaha at:

http://www.scribd.com/document_collections/2599080

Success follows the 'Brave'... Ooops Sorry the 'Slave'

The past one year of my Professional career (also happens to be my First) has taught me a lot. A lot about life, life's strife and people. These days have been eye opening and certainly hard work. But most of all it has been an experience which has brought me back to my senses and shattered my perception that struggle ends with a Masters degree. Actually, the real struggle starts there. During the course of the year I have had the fortune to work in diverse companies of various shapes and sizes. My current employment is with the biggest organization in the country, which would be the government, prior to which I was with a leading Business Daily and before which I was in IT. Hence, I can safely say that I have had 'varied' experience. Earlier I had a very different picture of how work would be but now having experienced it, I would have to say it is not quite what I thought. It is a lot less fun and a lot more slogging each and every day if you want to keep going and growing. Otherwise, you would end up in the mass of unemployed and under employed skilled workers. It takes a lot more than good grades because good grades can get you to the interview but to pass through and actually perform needs a lot more than just technical knowledge. It needs a cool, calm and patient mind which has the strength of a Pressure Cooker and the superconductivity of ultra-cooled Mercury to let the unnecessary heat received from superiors to disappear into the environment without inciting a reaction. It also needs a person to be able suckup to people like a hotel waiter would to a generous tipper as part of his Personal Relations initiative because it is ultimately relations or rather relations emanating from mutual benefit which count and end up in the business category of the Blackberry contacts list. One should be ready to stay in late unnecessarily and may check his mails and perform other unproductive chores during the day so that he may appear diligent and hard working to the management by burning the midnight oil. It is also required that one may absolutely abolish one's sense of integrity and self importance in front of the superior and be on his toes to do everything frivolous and meaningless which may or may not (but is expected to be done) be asked of him. It needs to be mentioned that one has to be clearly ready to be underpaid if he wants to lead his life successfully without incidence in the office or else he would have a hard time finding or sticking to a job. One should have an understanding that the job responsibilities mentioned to him during the recruitment process are only indicative and one may deployed any place required as one is a 'Paid Resource' and not a 'Human' employee and moreover from the company's point of view putting you out to do anything is what it meant by giving you a broader experience and exposure.

For me these are a lot of things to ask for. I fall short on a lot of the above mentioned requirements especially on the sucking up and the peoples part and hence am yet to be counted as a 'Star' on the BCG matrix. Till then let me be happy being the 'Question Mark'.

Till the next time....
Adios

SM

Wisdom Cliche'd

An infrequent writer I may be but to think that I have given up expressing myself would be incorrect. Well to update my last few months have been filled with triumph and tribulations. More tribulations than triumphs but each one has in its own way taught me something. I say all this at the cost of my thoughts being labeled as cliche'. Cliche' they may be but the relevance of each of these cliche's has just hit me and I am a perturbed by the incapability of man to learn from old wisdom falling on his ears until having faced the situation himself. Had the homo sapiens been able to learn from past glories and fallacies then may be the history and course of events of the world might have been different. Hitler might not have lost WW-II learning from the fate of Napoleon's army in Russia and the world would certainly have been very different from now. The German empire would have reigned supreme.

Would the world have been better or worse? For one Europe would have greatly flourished but in a selective fashion. US would have to play second rung to Germany and considering that the Nazis would have won over Moscow they might well have had the might to make US succumb too. The possibilities are endless and on another perspective India would have gained independence through military battles rather than non violent means as the Azad Hind Fauj would have got support from the advancing Germans. What they would have done with the won India is certainly beyond the realms of my imagination. Japan would still have been very strong as it is today but not only financially but militarily also. But the fate of the Allied nations and its inhabitants would certainly have been horrendous.

Well just another line for you to think upon. I will continue with my personal story in the next post.

Till then...
Adios
SM