Doormats and other such species...

              Now we all know someone or the other of this disposition, this breed of spineless yellow idiots, desperate to please anyone who cares enough to glance their way, this hopeless breed of what now passes as people are characterised by foot-prints stamped all over from being stepped on all-day(not to be confused with pushovers). Their eyes have that glassy, helpless stare popularized by the last American president George W. Bush jr . This breed which has always been in excess has become even more common since the advent of management as a topic for education.
               For years I’ve tried to pick up a management book and read from cover to cover, I’ve set challenges for myself, bribed myself, but to no avail. I’m usually reduced to helpless rolling fits of laughter by page 10. See , these books tell you that to be in anyway successful in today’s world you have to become a doormat, you have to let you boss wipe their feet on you, that you have to submit to their every whim. To succeed in any way you must check in your intellect, common sense, self respect and anything else that differentiates you from a machine at the entrance to your office in the morning when you enter, better yet leave it at home or in your car.
              We’ve all heard the common saying ’you can fool some people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time’, yet this doesn’t hold good in the case of management, they’ve convinced almost everyone, leave a few cynics that being stepped on is a good thing and it’s just the thing that god put us on his fair green earth for, how they did this was at first a mystery. I succeeded in clearing this mystery up by reading the backs of ten or so books and I can tell you its absolutely ingenious.
             This is the general method that’s used to convince the dumb hoards, the author picks up some culture  who’s people were renowned for their valour, honour, nobility or some other desirable quality, or some general, a war hero, Indian king, African tribal chief and recounts their tales which obviously tweaks your interests because to be honest we’ve all had those moments when we look in the mirror and imagine ourselves to be one of those larger than life heroes, the author then dresses you up as the corner office samurai which is indeed desirable and rather hot, and then they draw connections that make being stepped on a good thing, for example a samurai’s vow of obedience is taken as your vow to listen to your bosses every dim-witted  command no matter whether he’s a manic psychopath with an IQ comparable to the current room temperature.
              Now for the usual sceptics this usually isn’t sufficient and so they hit right at the heart of the matter,”MONEY”. The author then proceeds to pick a rich old guy like the CEO of GM, or Bill gates or the owner of Hughes, etc and then go on to say that these people got where they are by getting stepped on, slobbering  and puckering up every time their boss dropped their pants. No mentions to the fact that these people were indeed brilliant, sharp and great at what they did, that these rich old men got where they are by the sweat of their brows.
              This is usually enough for the weaker sceptics, for levels of scepticism above this you can get compared to anything from a bonsai tree small and power packed to apples and everything in between. Rather insulting wouldn’t you say???
              The contents of these books are of course things that any kid who’s passed in moral studies can tell you. A huge hue and cry is made about obedience, honesty, patience, etc. Things that we do need refreshers about every now and then, but to read a thousand page book that tells you the same things as your kids moral study book is beyond my comprehension. I am of course impressed by the multitude of methods by which this crap is sold despite my roaring laughter.
              For every few doormats there is a foot stool. A footstool is a promoted doormat, put in charge of the other doormats; promotions are given on the basis of many years of dedicated foot cleaning services. Foot stools are supervised by a step ladder, the wall ladder and all other manners of garage items. They are of course under the control of the corner office samurai’s. You may have figured out that as you move along this progression your vicinity to the floor decreases and you’re allowed to bring in a bit of your self-respect instead of leaving it all at the door. Of course a footstool has the added benefit of multiple puckered up doormats to stoke his ego.
             ‘What smart people do when dumb things happen at work’ is one of the titles I ran across, the author of course is a genius, he gets to charge people Rs 665 while getting to insinuate their stupidity and destroying the remaining shreds of dignity. Take my advice, you have a better chance at a promotion if you saved up that money and bought a gun, and asked your boss for a raise while showing off your new holster.

Games Of Chaos !!!!

         Most mornings prior to brushing my teeth I spend few minutes going thru the newspaper; I stumble through the pages stopping occasionally to take in bits and pieces of the stories before I reach my final destination, the comic strips. In the morning these somehow put you in the right mood for the day and help you to forget your anger towards the damn alarm clock. For the past few days I haven't had to go beyond page 1 of the newspaper for my morning dose of humour.
          Few days ago a bridge being built for the upcoming common wealth games which we’re hosting(hopefully for the last time) collapsed, injuring quite a few workers and setting us much further back than even those in charge could've imagine. I’d like to know how this happens, bridges fall down all the time I’m sure, and if asked, the people in charge will throw an encyclopaedia of excuses at us, but it still begs the question how we managed to be 1575% over budget (yes that number is right) and yet accomplish next to nothing. The collapse of the bridge crushed our collective national pride like a coke can underfoot, had this been an isolated incident, recovery might’ve been possible.
           Incidents previous to this includes the shooting of Taiwanese people in Delhi, a foreign reporter who managed to slip explosives into the main stadium at Delhi after having bought it a few kilometres from the games village. Besides this there are many other smaller incidents that didn't make the first page or happened while the reporters weren't watching. I personally have nothing against Taiwanese people and am equivocal about their getting shot but I do feel bad when the whole thing reaches a point where it catches even my attention.
           Over the years we as a people been able to make progress in the outside world and have slowly squeezed ourselves in through tightly clasped arms because to be honest an open armed welcome wasn't forthcoming. As a country we are still handled with caution in the outside world and our leaders are hell bent upon smearing this improvement with shit, and I mean literally, pictures have now been spread through the Internet of the absolutely outrageous conditions of the games village, some show the human droppings of the workers that built the games village, now we're grateful for their hard work but grateful doesn't mean that the visitors want to see what you had for lunch a week ago.
            The media is wondering why such a large number of sports-people have decided not to take part in these competitions, lets recap for their sakes shall we??? Coming to India would entail risk of life and limb and possibly the total loss of one’s nasal functions

• You risk being crushed by civil structures, or worse have one collapse while you're on top of it, I say worse only because I consider the sensation of falling to ones demise to be more disastrous than being suddenly crushed, I could be wrong.
• You risk being shot, of-course if you aren't Taiwanese your chances improve a bit, but you're still not completely safe.
• You may get out of your plane into the dizzying heat, only to be ushered into a room with footprints on the bed and gifts which may make you lose your senses of sight and smell immediately, or worse you risk keeping both these senses and losing your mind and will to live, of course personal opinion as to which is worse my differ.
• If, say you survive all this (say), you risk being blown up either by people from other countries pissed at ours or by one of the half assed reporters from your own country trying to get a story.

            I’ve never been among those devoutly patriotic people with a tri-colour hat, a flag on my t-shirt, or Gandhi computer wallpaper, but I am proud to be an Indian, even though I may not say it as often as I should. Even now in face of all this international humiliation I’m still equally proud but at the same time I do feel a burning sensation of outrage.
            Now outrage will come to nothing if nothing is said or done. We have lost all chances of hosting the Olympics anytime in the future. All that can be done now is to hope that nothing else goes wrong, hope that we miraculously pull everything together in time for the games. Because in all honesty all we can hope to do now is save face. So on behalf of my countrymen and their goof ups let me offer an apology in hopes that it’ll do some good. And hope that you don’t judge.