Ask not what...

One sees them everywhere: the nay-sayers. They think the world has gone to pieces. “What are things coming to?” they’ll remark with a mournful shake of their heads. “In the good, old days …” things were supposedly bigger, better, stronger. Bigger hearts, better morals and stronger principles. Things these days, on the other hand, are narrower, meaner and darker.

Yet, if the seven sins did not exist earlier too, how is it that they find mention in The Book? The truth, from my humble perspective, is that things have always remained the same, more or less. There were complainers then; there continue to be complainers now. There were doers then, and there are now too. The doers’ principle in life, I noticed, is rather simple. They ask themselves, “Do I have the locus standi to complain?” For, they think, if there is a cause to complain, one can either set it right, or not set it right. If one cannot set it right, one should forget it and not whine about it. If one can set it right, one should do so instead of whining about it.

So, the doer will ask, “Do I have the locus standi to complain?” and may get an answer like, “No, I don’t. I did get a chance to be on the apartment owners society , but I backed out, so I can’t really whine about the poor maintenance of the lifts.” The next time, then, the doer gets into the committee, ensures good maintenance of lifts and proper lighting of common areas, and thus, contributes that wee bit to make the world bigger, better, stronger.

And so, every time I get this urge to complain yet again — and there is no dearth of subjects — I ask myself, “Do I have the locus standi to complain?”

It keeps ulcers at bay.
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Use, Usage and Usability

One day, I noticed that a friend of mine doesn't wear a watch. I was curious. How did she know what time of the day it was, how could she be on time for her classes, how did she ever reach work on time and keep appointments etc.? So, we had the following conversation:

“Why don’t you wear a watch?”

“Because the time gets displayed on my cell phone anyway.”

“But the cell phone is inside your purse.”

“So?”

“So, how do you know, for example, whether you are running late for an appointment?”

“Even if I were to know, what difference would it make if I were to be stuck in a grand traffic jam and could not reach there on time unless I jumped out of my car and flew over everybody else?”

I kept quiet.

“Besides,” she continued, “how does 10 minutes this way, that way matter? One gets time to stand and stare.”

I kept quiet longer.

I am still pondering on the use, usage and usability of a watch...
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Political correctness

The age of political correctness. That is the age we live in, I thought, after a conversation with one of my friends. I had remarked that I was thinking of buying a second-hand car.

“A second hand car?” she asked, horrified.

“Yes, why not?” I replied, genuinely puzzled at her reaction. “You know that I’ll begin building my house within the next few months. I can’t afford a new car right now.”

“Yes, but a second-hand car?” she persisted.

Then it became apparent to me that even though both of us were conversing in English, we were not speaking the same language. They don’t call them second-hand cars anymore. They call them pre-owned cars.

Oh well.
As if a change in nomenclature wipes away the fact that the car is, in fact, not new. Whom are we fooling anyway? Show me one "Minutes of the meeting" that says "The Chairperson remarked..." and I'll bet my hat that it was a lady chairing the meeting, not a gentleman.

So, next time when my manual has a sentence like "The user must enter a password" and my French translator sends back a perfect sentence like "Le utilisateur doit taper un mot de passe" should I lose my sleep over the fact that the French version is gender-insensitive?
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First post

Thought that this could be a notebook. Can jot down random thoughts, and structure them for publication (grin).
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