The 'nasty religious' crowd

How does god accept this "nasty religious crowd"? By nasty, I don't intend to mock at their religious sentiments or behaviour but I completely mock at their social behaviour. This question was in my mind everytime I went to temples, especially crowded ones like Tirupathi and was reverberating strongly in my mind when I was standing in queue, when I had gone to Shirdi in April this year.

By nasty, I mean the impolite, rustic devotees who don't mind jumping lines or pushing the queue with the sole intention of seeing god before everyone else, before all the other law-abiding citizens who are standing for hours or days in the queue!! This was the primary reason I stopped going to temples (the other being an inclination to atheism :) ) but Shirdi was not something to be missed, I was told. I literally cursed everyone, when I stood in the queue, even went to the extent of thinking that I should have never set foot there. Baba, nothing to curse you, but everything to do with your nasty, so-called religious follwers!! Why don't you do something about them?

Will god be pleased with this pathetic behaviour of 'q' jumpers who are braving all odds and civic senses to meet him or will he admonish such ruthless jumpers who are depriving the rights of other law abiding citizens waiting patiently in line to see god? GOD ONLY KNOWS!!!

The Art of Leaving!

The art of leaving office after work is indeed a complex, metaphysical, psychosomatic process, which can only be mastered through a structured program, a la the art of living of Sri Sri Ravishankar ji. Whenever we leave office only, colleagues will have "urgent deliverables that need to be vetted by us" or managers would call for "meetings to discuss strategy for seamless integration of trainee associates". I am sure Dilbert faced the same problem too in his bounty corporate career but let us keep him aside for a moment. In this simple article, I intend to share some of the "best practices" I follow to accelerate the process of leaving office on time.

1) Start sending signals half an hour before exit. Make yourself a bit jittery, talk about traffic, some procession happening, weather, crowd at junctions etc. Send chaotic signals to make people understand you are leaving in the next 15 - 30 minutes!
2) Decline meeting requests (am serious) which may border the exit time. Cajole your colleagues also to decline meeting requests so that you don't stand as odd one out ;)
3) Go around the bays and talk to people, asking them when they were leaving, since it's about closing time at work and that everyone has to leave.
4) Talk about human rights, labour laws, 8 hour work shifts etc loud in such a way that the HR bay would also be able to hear. If HR sit in separate buildings, forward key labour rules as normal forwards to someone in HR so they may do the needful of forwarding it to their team members!!

5) One could also be proactive in starting preparations to leave for the day, right from lunch (isn't this getting better?!) After the lunch break, remind people half the day was over and that only 3 or 4 more hours are left for the work day to get over.

Is there more in your mind that could be added to the best practices list?, please do let me know.

Novels I read in the recent past

In the past 3 months, I completed reading "Fountainhead" and am now reading "Atlas Shrugged". Both are intense, extremely gripping till the last word and pretty heavy, focusing on individualism and taking potshots at the socialist mindset. I enjoyed reading Fountainhead and I hope to read it again sometime in the future. I find Atlas Shrugged much more enjoyable than Fountainhead, but I feel I've had to read some pages time and again to understand what the author intends to say!!

I also read Erich Segal's Doctors. I have mixed opinions about this book. I feel the author has let down doctors by trying to expose the hypocritic side of this noble profession, unmindful of the fact that there exists a hypocritic side in any profession! Overall the book was interesting to read, but gave lot more medical information than what a layman could understand. I have always had great opinions on doctors and so I found this book to be negative on doctors!! At the same time, my respect for alternative medicine has also grown leaps and bounds, since I witnessed some ailments or diseases, which remain untreated or not properly focussed in Allopathy, having excellent cure in Homeopathy or Ayurveda. For example, Multiple Sclerosis has 100% cure in homoepathy, whereas Allopaths generally prescribe a steroid for MS instead of complete cure of this disease.

There are lots of books to be read - hope I find time and interest to complete them soon :)