all in a days work
The day begins as usual with the sun galloping gaily and gazing at the earth with a benevolent eye (the sun does its work with a little too much enthusiasm and zeal in summer) and our subject (quite an interesting one too) wakes up at 6 (one of the very few of the subjects good habits). After doing the things, which all the other fauna of his specie do in the morning, our star prepares himself for another stressful day at office. The OFFICE is but 5 minutes from our heroes home and after gorging on the food that our ‘stars’ mother dutifully feeds him he sets out in a regal fashion in his super bike of his to render his invaluable services to the ‘in the brink of extinction firm’ in which our subject is working or should we say pursuing a budding career in commerce.
It is nine ‘o’ clock and our subject starts with the first duty of the day, to get the morning paper from the watchman. He takes the lift to the third floor and does the most important part of his work ‘to open the shutters’ and if you are asking yourselves what’s so tough in pulling open a shutter the author advices you to watch the subject in action. When one wants to learn how to how to make a simple and inelegant job of opening the shutters regal and elegant one must watch the sublime grace with which the subject does this. I am forced to load my readers with some technical details of opening a shutter so that budding young men willing to adopt opening shutters as their life long career may get a tip or two.
The process is as follows first the lock (strong navtal lock) at the base of the shutter is opened by our subject, then with a short jab he sets the shutter in an upward motion which gathers momentum with every passing minute and finally hits the ceiling, making a deuce of a noise thereby waking up a platoon of his fellow workers in the near by offices who have not yet shaken mists of sleep from their eyes. This action (opening the shutter) causes the plaster to fall from the ceiling every day thereby making a hole in the coffers of the company as fresh painting becomes inevitable. Thus in the simple act of opening the shutters our subject performs two altruistic acts, the first one being the noble act of waking up his fellow toilers making them fuller and better men and the second one, redistribution of cooped up wealth of the company. With these acts of his, he wins the hearts of his fellow men who have taken socialism as the ambition of life.
The second phase of the subject’s work consists putting on the air conditioner, the lights and most important of all the computers. This forms the base on which the work of others is built up. By now I think I have made it clear to my dear readers that our subject is the pillar on which the organization stands. You can say that, ‘he is, what kalam was to ISRO’. After doing this noble act of stabilizing the organization for the day, he proceeds to busy himself with the paper and this ordinary act also is done is with the highest motives of altruism. Our subject is not one of those neat and orderly souls who treat the paper as if it were a goddess from above, when I say that he races through the paper he really races through it. After he reads through the paper it looks as if it had a wild skirmish with a super tornado. The first page lays on the table the second one underneath it the third one somewhere on the fan and so on. The cries go round the city "has he become unstuck".
But so is not the case my friends. This act as already mentioned he does with the altruistic spirit brimming in his heart. It makes his colleagues search for the missing pages like an Assyrian wolf its favorite farmer. This gives his fellow supporters of the cause, a chance to wake up, a chance of relaxing their stiff limbs by running hither and thither and also deriving satisfaction of having participated in a treasure hunt for free.
The next scene of this real life drama is the arrival of the life and blood of the firm i.e. the
clients. They range from well fed to undernourished. Some win the battle in length and some in breadth but one common bond and cause unite them all, they all are clients and their clarion call "lets enlarge the brokers purse and lets lose it all". With this single united motto they come. At first glance the place looks like a free for all dinner party one can only see a sea of arms heads and legs all entangled with one another. I must not make my readers question the sanity of the clients so here is the explanation, and a real simple one too, they are hunting for THE CHAIRS.
The chairs as I aptly put it are a scarce commodity and the ownership of the chairs are purely decided on the sporting spirit of first come first served basis. My friends, think not, of this great happening as a normal everyday one. Friendships have been
broken, blood spilled, unpleasant words exchanged, and once our subject nearly assaulted, for the possession of The chairs .(A comparison may be made to the Ring in ‘Lord of the rings’)
After all have settled the office returns to normalcy and looks like (after some thought I find that I am at a loss to employ a proper simile) an office. All is set, the high and the wide are happy, the chairs are all happily occupied and peace caresses the air with a soft ant tender touch. But this is only calm before the storm. It is 9:54 and every thing is silent and the wheezing breaths of the wide and the excited breaths of the high can be heard. The air is electrified with expectation. It is 9:55 and still no sound, the thuds of the rat family learning dancing steps on the false roofing can be heard and the silence even draws two pigeons. They place themselves on the window a/c and look through the window at the computers with the same electrified silence. It is 9:55 and 20 seconds. Ten seconds pass by, so silent so pregnant with excitement.9: 55 and 30 seconds and there is some uneasy shuffling and a wide coughs and draws stares of censure from the high and rest of the wide.
It is 9:55 and 32 seconds and all hell breaks loose. The MARKET has opened, with about 14 highs and 24 wides trying to shout simultaneously and four phones trying to attract attention by screaming at the top of their voices, the scene can never be a refreshing one to a man of refinement and class like our subject. But he is not a person to run away from a call of duty and so he stays on and bites the bullet, which of course are not of the same class as cream biscuits. A wide treads on the foot of a high and a high pitched scream cuts above the babble and is heard over the tumult and uproar. These moments are very strenuous for the operator (a person who acts as a human sieve, segregating and singling out orders from the chorus, and feeds them in to the computer.) and you may ask "but what does our man on the mission do" and now again our subject performs the most difficult and noblest of actions. He stands by the operator and silently gazes at him with a kindly eye lending his wholehearted moral support and sympathy.
After the initial 10 minutes the whole lot stop resembling the spectators of an India vs. Pakistan match and go in to sort of a dull trance and lady peace who had fled from the office like street cricketers on finding a policeman round the corner, cautiously peeps in to the office and finding that all is not lost, reseats herself upon her throne and establishes her presence with quite some certainty. Even the two pigeons, which had fled to the temple near by thinking that judgment day has come, return and reseat themselves on the a/c.
Our subject is exhausted after the labors of exactness, concentration and lending moral support to the human sieve. He therefore duly retires to take some well-earned rest. Just when he starts to brood over the strenuousness and futility of the toils of commerce and of enlightening the high and wide about the nuances of buying and selling shares there comes a welcome distraction. The door opens and a tray enters of course being carried by a person who stamps his ownership upon the tray by carrying in it "THE TEA” that he has so assiduously prepared.
The so-called tea is a mixture of 90%water, some dust and as an afterthought some milk. But this curious little mixture exercises a wild charm on all the high and wide and they turn their attention whole heartedly to the tray, the cup and the tea in it in the order named. The tea ceases to be the tea and is transformed in to a lively object of desire.
Lady peace shuffles uneasily and looks at the forbearer of war with ill concealed animosity for she knows she will be kicked out if she does not shift her dignified presence from that place. Always the tea walas entrance hastens her exit. All the high and wide start turning in to napoleans forming in their already agile minds strategies of how to get to the dispenser of sorrows first because it is a general belief that if you reach the tray bearing the life elixir first you get the tastiest cup of tea, though the reality is far from it. All the cups contain the same mixture of water and sand.
A high dashes out of the chair for he is nearest to the life dispenser but just as he reaches the desired object a wide with a presence of mind and a startling strategy which would have made napolean proud and dharmaraja shake his head in disappointment, if of course both of them were interested in share markets and were members of the esteemed firm, shouts "hey buddy you just lost 10000”. This makes the high stagger for a moment thus making the wide the winner of the race in a photo finish with the high a close second. Then there is a general rush and commotion and fighting which makes a rat that had slowly crept up to a portion of a biscuit feel that an earthquake had broken loose and it dashes for cover hastily abandoning its lunch.
All this, our subject observes with a patronizing smile. He does not take part in the festivities and carefully avoids the tea, as his life’s motto is 'a stomach is not a sewer' but then this gives him, our tired distributor of sweetness, light and morale a chance to distract his aching soul.
By the time all blood is spilled and the ill-gotten gains of the war drunk it is 12.15. Our subject is active again for some work and so; he promptly goes out of the office. Slowly step by step he descends the stairs and goes out in the bright sunshine where the sun excited by seeing our subject after such a long time shines with renewed vigor and lovingly embraces our subject thereby causing him acute discomfort but then he is a man on a mission and lightly brushes away these small hurdles which providence may place in is path.
The office, which has been the center of action, is strategically placed near two hotels thereby helping our subject to stay active and employ himself usefully during the lull period. Now our subject faces the problem which 'the one ' faces in matrix and all great leaders faced at a point of time 'the problem of choice'
He has two choices
1.To his right hotel ramprasad
Advantages:
a. A sterling hotel
b. Every thing is cheap
c .All the time every thing is available (the strategy is not to waste yesterdays food.
Spoils of the father fortunes of the son, vadai of
Today vadakari of tomorrow)
d. Bowlers work as servers and you get good catching practice as parottas are thrown instead of served.
2.To his left adyar anandha bhavan
Advantages:
a. Good solid fast food restaurant
b. Strategically placed opposite to a woman’s hostel
Our subject pauses and finally decides to enrich the coffers of adyar anandha bhavan and cool his hot body and soul with some cool bird watching, thus making the owner of the super restaurant jump with whoops of joy.
This takes another 45 minutes and finally he returns to the office purely out of intentions of altruism. His fellow toilers must not think that he has walked away forever, break their hearts and leave the organization in desolation and ruin.
So exactly at 1.00 our subject returns to the office and enters in to the third phase of work. He allows the human sieve to get his daily ration by relieving him for a short period of time. The process of transforming oneself in to sort of a human sieve is a very tough one indeed. It involves great speed and accuracy but our subject fits the bill perfectly. He is damn quick though on the accuracy side it must be said that he has not achieved the heights of perfection.
A high asks him to buy 100 shares of infosys and he duly buys it but in the account of another wide. A harmless mistake one should say, which should have been brushed over with a jovial laugh and a harmless pat by any right-minded wide. But the wide does not see eye to eye with our subject and starts on the offensive. This is a little bit straining for our subject. He bought the shares in the account of the wide so that the wide can gain on a later date by losing some 100000 now. And for some strange reason the high, for whom the order must have been placed, also starts advancing menacingly at our poor little subject. Our hero is a quick thinker and by whispering a simple idea that ‘it was the super brain of the wide which sprung the idea to deprive the high of the shares’ in the high’s ear he turns the highs wrath towards the wide and for the second time during the day blood is spilt. Our subject quietly slips away from the spot like an Indian farmer on seeing a leopard and a tiger fighting for a copyright over his flesh.
All this takes about one hour and the original tamer of the lions comes back and relieves our noble subject. All this activity makes our dispenser of sorrows hungry again and he has his lunch. Lunch is one thing in which our subject is at his best and is very comfortable. He eats slowly with attention and care. Some of his friends say he closely resembles a bull munching grass, while eating. People run excursion trains to see our subject eat. They marvel at his sureness, steadfastness and concentration while enriching his soul and an ever-expanding waist line with his daily ration of calories.
After this our subject goes in to a sort of a trance. The process is as follows. He selects a comfortable chair and sits in it. Then he slowly lets his eyelids droop and slips in to dream world (this of course he does on suggestion by yoga stalwarts who feel that a man at least meditate for one hour in a day) and after one hour of meditation he slowly opens his eyes. Things of course had stagnated without his constant aid and help but then one cannot have everything. With this philosophical consolation, he sees the time. Its 3.15 and 15 mins before the market closes for the day. The last 15 mins are a very crucial period as this is the period in which all the high and wide wake up from their sleep and find that they are in the red.
Thus the human sieves sieving capacities are once again put to test in an earnest manner. Does our subject stand by idly, no of course not in these times of stress and tension he goes about pulling chairs from underneath the high and wide who are in the process of sitting thereby lightening the mood and giving a chance for a hearty laugh. Of course he faces some marked criticism from the bereaved owners of "the chairs" but this he takes in his stride because he understands the rule that 'all cannot be made happy' perfectly.
It is 3.25 and time for some more lending of moral support. This our subject does with zeal and enthusiasm. It is 3.30 and the market closes. After a mad rush to some how convert loses in to profits (so that they get dinner from their beloved) the high and the wide are exhausted and wipe away honest sweat from their brows and our super sieve wipes away blood from his ears and our subject wipes away biscuit crumbs from his shirt.
Slowly, one by one the high and wide start leaving, talking strategies of how to lose tomorrow. And all is silent once more 'the chairs' become a thing once more and lose their life. They are stacked in a corner so that the war can continue tomorrow.
In this process our subject helps by laying the foundation on which other chairs can be stacked upon i.e. he lays the first and the most important chair and lets the easy work to others.
Delivery slips are the slips in which the shares that are sold must be delivered is the definition of a delivery slip in ‘Investors guide to rob a broker’. And the inhabitants of the zoo called ‘the office’ must fill the delivery slips. Our subject is carefully kept away from these slips because these must be filled by persons whose A's look like A's and their E's like E's. If there is one thing in which our subject can consider himself unlucky it is his handwriting. Owing to the practice of writing seldom he very rarely completes writing a letter fully. At first when our subject had joined 'the office' his fellow toilers, ignorant of his one nagging weakness allowed him to fill 10 delivery slips. This when given to the concerned person for processing caused him a great deal of confusion as to why suddenly the slips were being filled in hieroglyphics and owing to a deficient education in which his school had not taught him how to read and write the ancient Egyptian communication system he could not understand them and duly failed to process the slips. This resulted in a loss of about 5 lakhs and from then the chief motto of the office was 'keep him away from anything to be put in black and white'.
It is 5 by the time the slips are filled and all the routine work is over. During all this period our subject interests himself in ornithology and busies him self with a pair of birds which are sitting on the windowsill. He does not take part in the work as it is routine and he is sure that his fellow workers can very well carry on without him. Suddenly there is a commotion and our subject is jerked out of his study. He feels like napolean asked to address his strategical intelligence to solve the problem of 'the missing underwears of soldiers' when he his in an intimate discussion with his chiefs to enrich himself with another country. Our subject thinks to himself 'I turn my back for an hour and see what happens. I wonder what these people are going to do without me'.
He slowly goes to the manager’s table where every body is huddled in some deep discussion evidently there is some problem and the machiavellian intelligence must be used once more. He stands before the manager and clears his throat. And the following dialogue takes place
Manager: "what"
Subject: "I know what the problem is"
Manager: "What"
Subject: "The figures do not tally"
Manager: "That we found out one hour before, and stop talking like a stupid"
(Not the right attitude to adopt towards the savior of the organization, but our subject doggedly persists)
Subject: "Why don’t we...”
Manager: "no good, shut up"
Subject: "we can...”
Manager: "no good either. Go away"
Subject: "It is possible to..........."
Manager: "a stupid idea, go away before I fire you"
After this intellectually exciting dialogue our subjects walks away with the satisfaction of a job well done. He wears a smug smile that German teachers wear after teaching or trying to teach the concept of where to use accusativ and when to use dativ.
Now that he has given the basic idea it will be easier for his fellow workers for the cause to solve the intriguing and enigmatic problem. He sighs at the dependence of the office members on him and dreads the day when he has to leave the organization. With this sad thought in his mind he goes to the window to resume his ornithological experimentations only to find that his feathered friends had remembered a more important appointment and were no more there. Thus, deprived of his only pastime he seeks to interest himself by hitting paper balls with a rubber band.
A harmless sport one would say. But one of the balls judiciously aimed at the shining hairless head of the manager which one can easily mistake for a paper weight went wide of the intended target and has a brief interview with the fan which for some reason best known to itself and doubtlessly out of the best motives kicks the ball towards a tube light. These tube lights are a very sensitive as a class, as soon as the ball touches it the tube light takes offence and registers a loud protest by disintegrating to about a million pieces (on later counting the number was reduced to 15) there by causing a short circuit and plunging the office in darkness.
Our subject smiles, a fantastic finish for the day. Judiciously ignoring the managers order asking the subject to stay where he was, he moves with a speed that sets a mark at which the other office leavers will shoot in vain. He rushes to the stairs and climbs down them. After coming to terra firma again he pauses taking in the fresh air of the outside. He is filled with the delight of having done two altruistic acts
1.helping an electrician earn his living
2.Helping his fellow toilers avoid the prime time rush by making them stay till about 9.30 in the night.
He enriches himself once again with the sweet smell of dishes floating from the hotel near by. He mounts on his bike kick-starts it and rides away in to the horizon, filled with the satisfaction of having done a number of altruistic acts. And as we watch, his broad form disappears in to the doors of a well-known restaurant...
It is nine ‘o’ clock and our subject starts with the first duty of the day, to get the morning paper from the watchman. He takes the lift to the third floor and does the most important part of his work ‘to open the shutters’ and if you are asking yourselves what’s so tough in pulling open a shutter the author advices you to watch the subject in action. When one wants to learn how to how to make a simple and inelegant job of opening the shutters regal and elegant one must watch the sublime grace with which the subject does this. I am forced to load my readers with some technical details of opening a shutter so that budding young men willing to adopt opening shutters as their life long career may get a tip or two.
The process is as follows first the lock (strong navtal lock) at the base of the shutter is opened by our subject, then with a short jab he sets the shutter in an upward motion which gathers momentum with every passing minute and finally hits the ceiling, making a deuce of a noise thereby waking up a platoon of his fellow workers in the near by offices who have not yet shaken mists of sleep from their eyes. This action (opening the shutter) causes the plaster to fall from the ceiling every day thereby making a hole in the coffers of the company as fresh painting becomes inevitable. Thus in the simple act of opening the shutters our subject performs two altruistic acts, the first one being the noble act of waking up his fellow toilers making them fuller and better men and the second one, redistribution of cooped up wealth of the company. With these acts of his, he wins the hearts of his fellow men who have taken socialism as the ambition of life.
The second phase of the subject’s work consists putting on the air conditioner, the lights and most important of all the computers. This forms the base on which the work of others is built up. By now I think I have made it clear to my dear readers that our subject is the pillar on which the organization stands. You can say that, ‘he is, what kalam was to ISRO’. After doing this noble act of stabilizing the organization for the day, he proceeds to busy himself with the paper and this ordinary act also is done is with the highest motives of altruism. Our subject is not one of those neat and orderly souls who treat the paper as if it were a goddess from above, when I say that he races through the paper he really races through it. After he reads through the paper it looks as if it had a wild skirmish with a super tornado. The first page lays on the table the second one underneath it the third one somewhere on the fan and so on. The cries go round the city "has he become unstuck".
But so is not the case my friends. This act as already mentioned he does with the altruistic spirit brimming in his heart. It makes his colleagues search for the missing pages like an Assyrian wolf its favorite farmer. This gives his fellow supporters of the cause, a chance to wake up, a chance of relaxing their stiff limbs by running hither and thither and also deriving satisfaction of having participated in a treasure hunt for free.
The next scene of this real life drama is the arrival of the life and blood of the firm i.e. the
clients. They range from well fed to undernourished. Some win the battle in length and some in breadth but one common bond and cause unite them all, they all are clients and their clarion call "lets enlarge the brokers purse and lets lose it all". With this single united motto they come. At first glance the place looks like a free for all dinner party one can only see a sea of arms heads and legs all entangled with one another. I must not make my readers question the sanity of the clients so here is the explanation, and a real simple one too, they are hunting for THE CHAIRS.
The chairs as I aptly put it are a scarce commodity and the ownership of the chairs are purely decided on the sporting spirit of first come first served basis. My friends, think not, of this great happening as a normal everyday one. Friendships have been
broken, blood spilled, unpleasant words exchanged, and once our subject nearly assaulted, for the possession of The chairs .(A comparison may be made to the Ring in ‘Lord of the rings’)
After all have settled the office returns to normalcy and looks like (after some thought I find that I am at a loss to employ a proper simile) an office. All is set, the high and the wide are happy, the chairs are all happily occupied and peace caresses the air with a soft ant tender touch. But this is only calm before the storm. It is 9:54 and every thing is silent and the wheezing breaths of the wide and the excited breaths of the high can be heard. The air is electrified with expectation. It is 9:55 and still no sound, the thuds of the rat family learning dancing steps on the false roofing can be heard and the silence even draws two pigeons. They place themselves on the window a/c and look through the window at the computers with the same electrified silence. It is 9:55 and 20 seconds. Ten seconds pass by, so silent so pregnant with excitement.9: 55 and 30 seconds and there is some uneasy shuffling and a wide coughs and draws stares of censure from the high and rest of the wide.
It is 9:55 and 32 seconds and all hell breaks loose. The MARKET has opened, with about 14 highs and 24 wides trying to shout simultaneously and four phones trying to attract attention by screaming at the top of their voices, the scene can never be a refreshing one to a man of refinement and class like our subject. But he is not a person to run away from a call of duty and so he stays on and bites the bullet, which of course are not of the same class as cream biscuits. A wide treads on the foot of a high and a high pitched scream cuts above the babble and is heard over the tumult and uproar. These moments are very strenuous for the operator (a person who acts as a human sieve, segregating and singling out orders from the chorus, and feeds them in to the computer.) and you may ask "but what does our man on the mission do" and now again our subject performs the most difficult and noblest of actions. He stands by the operator and silently gazes at him with a kindly eye lending his wholehearted moral support and sympathy.
After the initial 10 minutes the whole lot stop resembling the spectators of an India vs. Pakistan match and go in to sort of a dull trance and lady peace who had fled from the office like street cricketers on finding a policeman round the corner, cautiously peeps in to the office and finding that all is not lost, reseats herself upon her throne and establishes her presence with quite some certainty. Even the two pigeons, which had fled to the temple near by thinking that judgment day has come, return and reseat themselves on the a/c.
Our subject is exhausted after the labors of exactness, concentration and lending moral support to the human sieve. He therefore duly retires to take some well-earned rest. Just when he starts to brood over the strenuousness and futility of the toils of commerce and of enlightening the high and wide about the nuances of buying and selling shares there comes a welcome distraction. The door opens and a tray enters of course being carried by a person who stamps his ownership upon the tray by carrying in it "THE TEA” that he has so assiduously prepared.
The so-called tea is a mixture of 90%water, some dust and as an afterthought some milk. But this curious little mixture exercises a wild charm on all the high and wide and they turn their attention whole heartedly to the tray, the cup and the tea in it in the order named. The tea ceases to be the tea and is transformed in to a lively object of desire.
Lady peace shuffles uneasily and looks at the forbearer of war with ill concealed animosity for she knows she will be kicked out if she does not shift her dignified presence from that place. Always the tea walas entrance hastens her exit. All the high and wide start turning in to napoleans forming in their already agile minds strategies of how to get to the dispenser of sorrows first because it is a general belief that if you reach the tray bearing the life elixir first you get the tastiest cup of tea, though the reality is far from it. All the cups contain the same mixture of water and sand.
A high dashes out of the chair for he is nearest to the life dispenser but just as he reaches the desired object a wide with a presence of mind and a startling strategy which would have made napolean proud and dharmaraja shake his head in disappointment, if of course both of them were interested in share markets and were members of the esteemed firm, shouts "hey buddy you just lost 10000”. This makes the high stagger for a moment thus making the wide the winner of the race in a photo finish with the high a close second. Then there is a general rush and commotion and fighting which makes a rat that had slowly crept up to a portion of a biscuit feel that an earthquake had broken loose and it dashes for cover hastily abandoning its lunch.
All this, our subject observes with a patronizing smile. He does not take part in the festivities and carefully avoids the tea, as his life’s motto is 'a stomach is not a sewer' but then this gives him, our tired distributor of sweetness, light and morale a chance to distract his aching soul.
By the time all blood is spilled and the ill-gotten gains of the war drunk it is 12.15. Our subject is active again for some work and so; he promptly goes out of the office. Slowly step by step he descends the stairs and goes out in the bright sunshine where the sun excited by seeing our subject after such a long time shines with renewed vigor and lovingly embraces our subject thereby causing him acute discomfort but then he is a man on a mission and lightly brushes away these small hurdles which providence may place in is path.
The office, which has been the center of action, is strategically placed near two hotels thereby helping our subject to stay active and employ himself usefully during the lull period. Now our subject faces the problem which 'the one ' faces in matrix and all great leaders faced at a point of time 'the problem of choice'
He has two choices
1.To his right hotel ramprasad
Advantages:
a. A sterling hotel
b. Every thing is cheap
c .All the time every thing is available (the strategy is not to waste yesterdays food.
Spoils of the father fortunes of the son, vadai of
Today vadakari of tomorrow)
d. Bowlers work as servers and you get good catching practice as parottas are thrown instead of served.
2.To his left adyar anandha bhavan
Advantages:
a. Good solid fast food restaurant
b. Strategically placed opposite to a woman’s hostel
Our subject pauses and finally decides to enrich the coffers of adyar anandha bhavan and cool his hot body and soul with some cool bird watching, thus making the owner of the super restaurant jump with whoops of joy.
This takes another 45 minutes and finally he returns to the office purely out of intentions of altruism. His fellow toilers must not think that he has walked away forever, break their hearts and leave the organization in desolation and ruin.
So exactly at 1.00 our subject returns to the office and enters in to the third phase of work. He allows the human sieve to get his daily ration by relieving him for a short period of time. The process of transforming oneself in to sort of a human sieve is a very tough one indeed. It involves great speed and accuracy but our subject fits the bill perfectly. He is damn quick though on the accuracy side it must be said that he has not achieved the heights of perfection.
A high asks him to buy 100 shares of infosys and he duly buys it but in the account of another wide. A harmless mistake one should say, which should have been brushed over with a jovial laugh and a harmless pat by any right-minded wide. But the wide does not see eye to eye with our subject and starts on the offensive. This is a little bit straining for our subject. He bought the shares in the account of the wide so that the wide can gain on a later date by losing some 100000 now. And for some strange reason the high, for whom the order must have been placed, also starts advancing menacingly at our poor little subject. Our hero is a quick thinker and by whispering a simple idea that ‘it was the super brain of the wide which sprung the idea to deprive the high of the shares’ in the high’s ear he turns the highs wrath towards the wide and for the second time during the day blood is spilt. Our subject quietly slips away from the spot like an Indian farmer on seeing a leopard and a tiger fighting for a copyright over his flesh.
All this takes about one hour and the original tamer of the lions comes back and relieves our noble subject. All this activity makes our dispenser of sorrows hungry again and he has his lunch. Lunch is one thing in which our subject is at his best and is very comfortable. He eats slowly with attention and care. Some of his friends say he closely resembles a bull munching grass, while eating. People run excursion trains to see our subject eat. They marvel at his sureness, steadfastness and concentration while enriching his soul and an ever-expanding waist line with his daily ration of calories.
After this our subject goes in to a sort of a trance. The process is as follows. He selects a comfortable chair and sits in it. Then he slowly lets his eyelids droop and slips in to dream world (this of course he does on suggestion by yoga stalwarts who feel that a man at least meditate for one hour in a day) and after one hour of meditation he slowly opens his eyes. Things of course had stagnated without his constant aid and help but then one cannot have everything. With this philosophical consolation, he sees the time. Its 3.15 and 15 mins before the market closes for the day. The last 15 mins are a very crucial period as this is the period in which all the high and wide wake up from their sleep and find that they are in the red.
Thus the human sieves sieving capacities are once again put to test in an earnest manner. Does our subject stand by idly, no of course not in these times of stress and tension he goes about pulling chairs from underneath the high and wide who are in the process of sitting thereby lightening the mood and giving a chance for a hearty laugh. Of course he faces some marked criticism from the bereaved owners of "the chairs" but this he takes in his stride because he understands the rule that 'all cannot be made happy' perfectly.
It is 3.25 and time for some more lending of moral support. This our subject does with zeal and enthusiasm. It is 3.30 and the market closes. After a mad rush to some how convert loses in to profits (so that they get dinner from their beloved) the high and the wide are exhausted and wipe away honest sweat from their brows and our super sieve wipes away blood from his ears and our subject wipes away biscuit crumbs from his shirt.
Slowly, one by one the high and wide start leaving, talking strategies of how to lose tomorrow. And all is silent once more 'the chairs' become a thing once more and lose their life. They are stacked in a corner so that the war can continue tomorrow.
In this process our subject helps by laying the foundation on which other chairs can be stacked upon i.e. he lays the first and the most important chair and lets the easy work to others.
Delivery slips are the slips in which the shares that are sold must be delivered is the definition of a delivery slip in ‘Investors guide to rob a broker’. And the inhabitants of the zoo called ‘the office’ must fill the delivery slips. Our subject is carefully kept away from these slips because these must be filled by persons whose A's look like A's and their E's like E's. If there is one thing in which our subject can consider himself unlucky it is his handwriting. Owing to the practice of writing seldom he very rarely completes writing a letter fully. At first when our subject had joined 'the office' his fellow toilers, ignorant of his one nagging weakness allowed him to fill 10 delivery slips. This when given to the concerned person for processing caused him a great deal of confusion as to why suddenly the slips were being filled in hieroglyphics and owing to a deficient education in which his school had not taught him how to read and write the ancient Egyptian communication system he could not understand them and duly failed to process the slips. This resulted in a loss of about 5 lakhs and from then the chief motto of the office was 'keep him away from anything to be put in black and white'.
It is 5 by the time the slips are filled and all the routine work is over. During all this period our subject interests himself in ornithology and busies him self with a pair of birds which are sitting on the windowsill. He does not take part in the work as it is routine and he is sure that his fellow workers can very well carry on without him. Suddenly there is a commotion and our subject is jerked out of his study. He feels like napolean asked to address his strategical intelligence to solve the problem of 'the missing underwears of soldiers' when he his in an intimate discussion with his chiefs to enrich himself with another country. Our subject thinks to himself 'I turn my back for an hour and see what happens. I wonder what these people are going to do without me'.
He slowly goes to the manager’s table where every body is huddled in some deep discussion evidently there is some problem and the machiavellian intelligence must be used once more. He stands before the manager and clears his throat. And the following dialogue takes place
Manager: "what"
Subject: "I know what the problem is"
Manager: "What"
Subject: "The figures do not tally"
Manager: "That we found out one hour before, and stop talking like a stupid"
(Not the right attitude to adopt towards the savior of the organization, but our subject doggedly persists)
Subject: "Why don’t we...”
Manager: "no good, shut up"
Subject: "we can...”
Manager: "no good either. Go away"
Subject: "It is possible to..........."
Manager: "a stupid idea, go away before I fire you"
After this intellectually exciting dialogue our subjects walks away with the satisfaction of a job well done. He wears a smug smile that German teachers wear after teaching or trying to teach the concept of where to use accusativ and when to use dativ.
Now that he has given the basic idea it will be easier for his fellow workers for the cause to solve the intriguing and enigmatic problem. He sighs at the dependence of the office members on him and dreads the day when he has to leave the organization. With this sad thought in his mind he goes to the window to resume his ornithological experimentations only to find that his feathered friends had remembered a more important appointment and were no more there. Thus, deprived of his only pastime he seeks to interest himself by hitting paper balls with a rubber band.
A harmless sport one would say. But one of the balls judiciously aimed at the shining hairless head of the manager which one can easily mistake for a paper weight went wide of the intended target and has a brief interview with the fan which for some reason best known to itself and doubtlessly out of the best motives kicks the ball towards a tube light. These tube lights are a very sensitive as a class, as soon as the ball touches it the tube light takes offence and registers a loud protest by disintegrating to about a million pieces (on later counting the number was reduced to 15) there by causing a short circuit and plunging the office in darkness.
Our subject smiles, a fantastic finish for the day. Judiciously ignoring the managers order asking the subject to stay where he was, he moves with a speed that sets a mark at which the other office leavers will shoot in vain. He rushes to the stairs and climbs down them. After coming to terra firma again he pauses taking in the fresh air of the outside. He is filled with the delight of having done two altruistic acts
1.helping an electrician earn his living
2.Helping his fellow toilers avoid the prime time rush by making them stay till about 9.30 in the night.
He enriches himself once again with the sweet smell of dishes floating from the hotel near by. He mounts on his bike kick-starts it and rides away in to the horizon, filled with the satisfaction of having done a number of altruistic acts. And as we watch, his broad form disappears in to the doors of a well-known restaurant...
posted by charan at 9:36 PM
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