THE EXPIRY DATE

Three occurrences that happened during a couple of day back , has really disturbed me and made me think whether some discussion in this direction is required.

Well the first one was that of passing away of the one and only DEV ANAND,which I felt was a real loss to the film society, and it made me sad too, because I was a real admirer of his films, liked his smile and was a die hard listener of his many songs. But beyond all this, the reason for my sadness was different, As a mark of tribute to Dev sab all TV channels were telecasting the songs of Dev anand acted movies, where his captivating face and smile was haunting the TV screens , Simultaneously some TV channels were also showing a recent interview with dev sharing the screen, as fragile personality, with sunken eyes, wrinkled cheeks and with that charismatic smile oh god, would he have ever imagined that old age can really make one devoid of those charm and looks. well seeing him than and now and than seeing myself now and comparing me 10 year back has really brought in a lot of fear about old age.I felt God, for once has been too unfair for he should have really put an expiry date on all of us, any product manufacturer has to invariably put the date of manufacture, the shelf period and not safe beyond this date. After all when all of us know that one thing certain is death why should we really undergo so much of hurdles carrying oneself with difficulty and old age problems. If this is there we may really have a quality life.

Well the second incident was the last lunar eclipse that happened a few days back, which was also visible in India, while this topic was being discussed with people at home what they were saying was again disturbing for they said as per the almanac, the previous day was a full moon day, we all have been told and read that the lunar eclipse normally happens on a full moon day. And in scientific terms when the sun , earth and the moon all three are in a straight line. If both the facts are true than we do have to infer that there has to be a slight shift either in the imaginary axis of the earth or some disturbance within the solar system. Well have we all not taken for granted that this universe would exist for ever and it is eternal. Well here again if any product/machine or a system, which functions untiringly will definitely undergo changes of wear and tear, and would really come to a grinding halt irrespective of the type of maintenance, here again I guess there has to be an expiry date for our solar system too, only thing is that we are unaware rather we do not want it to happen.

The third occurrence is my daughters every day lamenting, saying that  her friends share a topic that the world would come to an end during 2012, which again is one of such statements which keeps making the rounds now and than, and her worry and desire is that she has to live longer and feels she is being denied the right of living longer as her grand parents, uncles aunts and parents, here again I was reminded about fixing an expiry date, which should neither be too early nor too late.

An exit or scrapping when too tender or too old would be an irrational choice, so let our mighty god too go with some derived standardization by introducing the concept of  expiry dates   

THE JOURNEY

My worries started looming around me even ten days ahead of that dreadful day. I started having sleepless nights and my stress level kept on rising, ultimately the day too arrived I woke up early, took that extra care that I have to be pleasant able at the venue and should not find myself out of place, are you all guessing what this dreadful day might be, well it was a journey that I had to perform by flight.

Travelling by AIR even thou had a lot of fancy for me, the procedures and the environment that prevails once you step into an airport, makes you scary and dizzy, The first point of fear grip from that weird doubtful look that the security man, gives you at the entrance, than comes the next issue of checking in your baggage ,should I go to the scanner or go to the counter this doubt lingers on than I start swaying my eyes to capture what’s going on with the other co passengers who are heading in different directions .I start following one of them, trying to clone what ever is being done by him/her. But the doubt still there whether I am in the right queue, has my baggage been  loaded in to the right flight, am I following the right track/gate and till such time I get into the flight I have undergone  a thousand ripples I guess if an ECG machine is left at the airport every one would show a mind variation in there heart functioning.

Well once settled into my seat, now the next level of tension gripped me, is this journey going to be safe, I hope the flight takes off in time and with out any issue, the moment the cabin crew starts giving the safety tips I roll over my eyes to make sure that 8 exits do exist. Try to locate them and also have fixed up which can become the shortest route to escape, in case of emergency and whether  an emergency is anticipated or not I am fully geared up to meet it.

I say a few prayer to myself once the engine is switched on ,cling on to my seat(I think I don’t require a seat belt) my fear has fastened me more firmly to my seat, and really give a large relief when I start seeing the diminishing sizes of buildings, oh the take off is over, and soothe myself that things are fine for the moment, but I cant assure anything for the present,(sorry for being so pessimistic)By nature I am quite optimistic only this flightophobia(a new word of my invention)make me sick. Now turn back the same sequence of anxiety, despair and helplessness till such time that the flight makes a safe landing (me too).

Yeah this was the psych of mind when I started my journey from my home town , imagine what is in hold for me at the destination. I started tailing my co passengers ahead of me not taking my eyes off , following them praying that first I should reach the baggage collection point, second my baggage should arrive (shouldn’t have traveled in a different flight) and should really land up at the right exit gate, where some one might pick me up, lets run this sequence and see what happened, walking across various conveyors/escalators I reached a point where the conveyors were scrolling on with baggage, I waited for 10 min, couldn’t sight my unique bag, because it was in a rare colour (easy to identify).Then I look up on the CCTV information board which says my baggage collection is at a different point ,I scan around, locate the point, move on with a bit of nervousness and stand, staring at the moving corrugated conveyor, with more expectations  to sight  my bag, by then  the person assigned to pick me up  has already given me two to three calls, stating he waits at gate no 3(very exact details) I should not miss him. Atlast my bag has come, and carefully I head thro exit no 3, scanning around all the boards to locate my cab, and I fail to notice him? Is there another exit gate 3 and I landed else where, I now make a call on his mobile and say I am out. He too confirms he is right there, we both on connected mode start searching each other oh ,both of us are just facing each other. The only mistake he has made is to have given his own spelling for my name, which was beyond recognition. Well so far so good I am in a cab  hopefully heading towards my destination. And I am sure that each time I have to make a journey thro AIR, EVERY TIME ITS GOING TO BE THE SAME DEAL

THE MAZE

Don’t  we all love solving problems? Yeah! I can hear many saying nay, while some ARE JUST DOING IT ALWAYS ,well even though I was referring to problem solving in mathematics, the topic under scanner today is problem solving in real life.

I do hope we always look forward for many things to happen uninterrupted, like having a permanent job, getting your salary paid regularly, always longing that only our kid should get that standing ovation in all fields, that  our dear ones; father ,mother ,brothers ,sisters and kids should always be in the pink of their health, that our domestic help should come in time and of course not absent herself, that the train/flight/bus should be on time, that there should be no power cuts and that  every one of us should be the boss and no one should boss us over. Well such expectations and desires are endless and even if one activity is not going as per our expectation, then we have a problem. The moment we have a problem, all of us would like it to get resolved the earliest, so that ,life flows  like a steady river.

Well now the issue starts with how big or small our problem is, whether we are capable of solving it, whether we just have a single simple problem on hand or , has the problem too come as a serial string.

Well what ever it is, I did have a problem. In the recent days I earnestly believed that the problem should get solved(more than that, felt that it was my star, fate, karma and ill luck, which was the cause of my irony ).

This was the time that I had a whole  8-10 hours where I had nothing else to do than to brood over my ill luck and endlessly keep tuning down into the 80 channels on the television. To my surprise I found that I was not alone in this world, for there were many people along with me, because there were lot of dial in programmes and many people wer e calling up the stations and seeking remedies for their problems. This caught my fancy . When there seems to be some solution, why miss them? So I also started watching them ,to see whether I get some clue.

I was on a channel, there was a person sitting with a Laptop and of course an anchor who was aiding him by receiving the calls and transferring the person for a one is to one discussion. Oh! The first caller had landed. The man was asking , “What is your date of birth? What problems do you have?” The caller gave both the info spontaneously. There was a response from the person and he started reciting, “Your zodiac is so and so, the planets that you have to activate are Venus, Saturn, Mars. For this you have to wear a gem associated with the planet . Some times he spoke about a yantra and then there were at least two to three planets that were supposed to be deactivated, and during the 30 minutes program almost all the planets were under the zone of discussion for either activation or deactivation. Now I believed that I  too have to go thro this process identify which are the problem creating planets and how to enhance them.

I was wondering on this subject and accidently bumped on yet another channel, here again the set was different.  But two people were there to help people come out of their difficulty, again there was a stream of calls ,the same questions ,DOB ,and your problem.NOW THE REMEDY WAS DIFFERENT. THE EXPERT SAID, “Your Jupiter is weak or Saturn is in retro grade. And now the people were being guided to visit the shrines of identified deities who can mitigate the ill effect and make wonders for you.

My search did not stop here, I was on a different time band and a different channel, and here was an expert on vasthu. He was enquiring “What’s in the north of your house? Were is the kitchen placed? Is your tap in the north eastern corner? Have you closed your window facing north?” And suggesting various alterations that has to be made minor as well as major, like even turning ones house upside down. I started going around my house to check whether what ever deviations he said existed in my house and whether that was the reason for my problems.

Thinking about this in my browsing schedule ,now I had parked on a different channel, here was yet another expert who spoke about cosmic energy and activating cosmic energy thro pyramid, this was too heavy for me to handle, so flip I slipped into another channel, here again I could listen to people calling up an expert for respite, now the scene was slightly different the expert was a swamiji, who was fluently reciting some mantra in Sanskrit,(I doubt whether the caller could even capture a word out of it) and each person was given a mantra to be recited 108 times, 48 times etc, so that he would get the benevolence of the god .

When all these things were churning into my head, I had landed up into yet another channel which was claiming that once you train your mind and invoke the inner conscious then you can completely come out of any problems. Just due to paucity I am stopping here because I had encounters with at least a dozen more channels with different techniques

Now my difficulty is that I believe all of them and I guess following their advice would really give good results , but the problem is what do I really do should I go and get those gems, start visiting temples, recite mantras, demolish my kitchen and redo my house or start  practicing to control my mind. Well this is when I remembered problem solving in maths, the lesser the number of variables, the easier to solve and as the number of variable increases, the problem becomes very complex and tedious to solve.

SO NOT KNOWING WHAT TO DO I RESOLVED TO DO THE EASIEST THING THAT IS TO KEEP QUIET,WELL IMAGINE WHAT DO WE DO WHEN YOU GET A VERY TOUGH QUESTION PAPER, IN MATHS,JUST WRITE YOUR ROLL NO AND SIT FOR 30 MINUTES AND SUBMIT YOUR PAPER AND COME OUT WELL THAT’S IT.GOD solves all our difficult problem.