Fact vs Opinion

We all know how important it is to get your facts right before you speak to anyone about anything , do we really stop and think if all the data that we have are concrete FACTS or just OPINIONS of so called intellectuals , most of who are people who go around saying whatever comes to their mind and a majority believe them on the basis of face value or reputation.  

Now how do i distinguish between a Fact and an Opinion ? Let me give you a simple example :- when i say "Dr. Manmohan Singh is the Prime Mininster of India", it is a hard fact because he officially holds this position, everybody regards him as one, but when i say that "Dr.Manmohan Singh is one of the worst Prime Ministers of India", now that is an opinion because not everybody will agree with this statement.

Each one of us has a reputation that preceeds us , be it friends are concerned or colleagues. The idea i am trying to put on the table is that most of us have some sort of Opinion on someone, some event , some place or something and when we talk about any of these we want our listeners to believe it , although what we say need not necessarily be a Fact. There is a desparate ongoing attempt by anyone talking to you to believe what he/she says, hence there is a desparate attempt by people from all walks of life to be heard, to have their  'Opinions' be received as 'Facts' by their listeners. If you have ever noticed some of those guys in your college campus who want a bunch of people to be following them all the time, you'll know what i mean. And why shouldn't they, after all if they dont create there own circle no one else will create a circle for them. Now if this circle of people is created based no mere Opinions then , the circle will definitely not last long. And here comes the need to find out what How can Opinions be converted into Facts, because if one can then it is definitely for the better.

CREDIBILITY - is the 1st thing that comes to my mind when an Opinion has to be accepted as a Fact. We would accept an economic scheme proposed by Amartya Sen, than one by Montek Singh Ahluahlia (because he has become famous for the Rs.32 per day theory recently released to the media). I mean common, one is a Nobel Laureate and the other...well he's just there to say anything that comes to his mind when faced with a question ...

On the same note , if you want to be successfull ,  you would want to be listening to a successfull guy who has made it big in life than a wannabe who's himself trying to make his place .This is exactly why all those books sell you know, even Steve Jobs posthumous biography will , i am sure.

PROOF - is the second and more important for most of us who are not that credible yet. If you are good at something get certified in it, if you have worked well get you manager's/employer's letter of recommendation, if you have created something of value show people how valuable it is and if you believe that something is possible , dont talk about it, go out there and 'just do it' . When i was in High School, there used to be 3 words written on our school belts 'No Words, Acts'. Back then it only made literal sense to me, today it is a whole lot more than that.

Only acts in the right direction can help you convert your Opinions into HARD FACTS.

Happy Reading to you all.

Friendship day

DING-DONG...

(after a gap of a few seconds the bell rings again)

DING-DONG...

Nikhil usually woke up at 11 am on a weekend morning. Today was a usual saturday

and as usual Nikhil was asleep , but unfortunately for him, there someone ringing his doorbell

at 9.00 am. He lived alone in his 1 bhk flat , hence if Nikhil was not moving then the door would not be moving open either.

DING-DONG...

Nikhil - "what the hell , itni subah kaun aya hai........sale, sone bhi nahi denge. why can they just stand in peace for a while after they ring the bell once. The society needs to get familiarised with the word 'patience' "(blabbers to himself  while getting out of bed)

Nikhil gets to the door droopy eyed. As soon as he opens the door, even before he could
notice the face of the person standing in front of him(this was because Nikhil had a habit of looking at people from bottom to top rather than from top to bottom,
some people are born wierd...cannot blame him), he heard a voice asking
"Are you Mr.Krishnakanth Rangachari Meenakshi Sundareshwaran"

Nikhil blinked at him in utter amazement for a few seconds, and immediately after that

looked at him again (bottom to top)...he usually figured out what to say when his bottom to top

glance was over(It as his 'buying time' technique). Nikhil asked "you came here asking for one guy or four ?"

Man said  - "No sir, just Mr.Krishnakanth Rangachari Meenakshi Sundareshwaran, 'oru' person"(oru means 'one' in tamil)

Nikhil - "'what' person !!?"(he had no idea about the Tamil Language)

Man - "one...one...single" (now gesturing with his index finger)

Nikhil - (gesturing with his middle finger)"one person ?"

Man - "ama sir('ama' means 'yes' in tamil), credit card payment..2 months...no payment"

Nikhil - (now smiling and getting a hang of the situation but still groggy) "So you are looking for
some dude whose name makes me fall back to sleep, who is single and has not payed his credit card dues for two months ?"

Man - "ama sir"

Nikhil - "i am Nikhil Kumar, no Mr. Krishna here" (he was about to shut the door when the man says)

Man - "ille ille(meaning 'no, no') , name Mr.Krishna no, name Mr.Krishnakanth Rangachari Meenakshi Sundareshwaran"

Nikhil - (a bit irritated)"that is what i am telling you, i am referring to the same person"

Man - "Address same sir"

Nikhil - (now even more irritated and shouting)"arre to main kya karun yaar, i came one month back and dont know
who was living here before that"

Man - (now it was the Man's turn to blink, aparently Nikhil had spoken so fast out of irritation mixing hindi with english that this guy did not have a clue as to what message was just conveyed to him) he says
"english teriade sir(meaning i dont now english)"

Nikhil - (now furious and not bothering if the man understood english or not)"have you come to collect the money or kick his a** ?"

Man - "english teriade sir"

Nikhil - "Do you understand hindi ?"

Man - "english teriade sir"

Nikhil - (realising what mistake he had just made)"hindi ati hai ?"

Man - "kunjum kunjum sir (meaning 'little little')"

Nikhil - "Now what is 'Kunjum kunjum' ?"

Man - (instead of understanding it as 'what is the meaning of little little' he understood Nikhil's question as 'do you know little little' , as if  Nikhil was confirming with him)
"ama sir"

Nikhil - (reacting by shutting his eyes, turning his face away from the guy, with the 'what do i do with this guy' kind of look )
"This man(gesturing to the name on the piece of paper that man was holding) does not live here"

Man - (now understanding what Nikhil said)"kiter gaiya yai (meaning 'where did the man go')?"

Nikhil - (slightly relaxed)"mujhe laga tumko hindi bhi samajh nahi ati"

Man - "toda toda yata yai"

Nikhil - (getting sick of the hindi he was being forced to hear)"hindi mat bol mere baap !!"

Man - (thinking Nikhil just mouthed a paternal abuse, talking in a loud but sqeaky voice)"AYE, kiska baap ?"
(in tamil land when they are angry they always start with an 'aye' on a loud voice heavy voice, most pick it up from movies)

Nikhil - (wondering where this conversation was going, and nearing frustration)"mera baap, mere bhai"

Man - "aatmi kiter yai (where is the man)?"

Nikhil - (now talking without thinking)"chala gaya hoga, flat change, bhag gaya...tumse"

Man - "kiter pag gaya yai ?"

Nikhil - (NOW LOOSING IT, but with a mild tone so that the man deos not take it
negetively as an abuse)"abe dhakkan, i dont know"

Man - (detemined to get information, speaking slowly as he had a long sentence in hindi in his mind now)
"kisko...........pata.............yai, ki..............wo.........kiter...........gaya......yai?"

Nikhil was now looking frantically from left to right, hoping commonsense prevails and checked him out from botton to top ,
as we know already that when faced a difficult situation our Nikhil cannot think what to do or say until his trademark glance is over.
In the mean time , before Nikhil could speak, the man said

Man - "AYE , kya dekta yai ?"

Nikhil - (now with his face red, immitating the mans' style)"abe kabutar, teri akalmandi 'dek ra yai' "

Man - "AYE, kya bolta yai ?"

Nikhil - (now cursing himself for ever taking up a job in this city and wondering why on earth did he even start a converstaion
in hindi in the 1st place, shouting)
"abe gadhe ki doooooooooo, how do i make you understand that i dont know"

It was one of those loud shouts that makes everything around go silent. Surprisingly, the man was smiling at Nikhil now.
Nikhil was growing crazy with every moment now. All of a sudden he could hear 2 guys laughing their guts out on the
stair case while coming to the floor Nikhil's flat was situated in . Within moments Nikhil was shocked to find his two friends
walking up the staircase onto his floor, they were Daddoo Singh and Laddoo Singh.

Nikhil - "tum log yahan kya kar rahe ho ?"

Daddoo and Laddoo  - (speaking in unison) "Tujhe Happy tarike se, happy friendship day wish karne aye hain meri jaan"

Nikhil now sensing, sending this Man to his door and literally driving him crazy could have been the handy work
of his mentally knocked out friends states

Nikhil - "Did you send this guy to my flat ?"

Daddoo and Laddoo  - (in unison) "hahahahahahaha"

Nikhil's suspicion was certified into being a fact by their reaction, and almost instantaniously noticing
the hanging left ear phone piece from the Man's ear and the microphone clipped to his shirt. They mst have been
hearing him speak to this Man and getting frustrated ,through a call while they were downstairs until he started shouting(because then
they would not need the ear phones anymore).Surprisingly the Man he had lost his already limited patience on, was still standing at the
same place where he stood when they had stopped conversing. Not even his smile had faded one bit. Probably his freaky friends had paid him off
to carry out the act. The mans' look made Nikhil all the more angry and impatient. He had to vent out his anger on someone now.

Nikhil - (now looking towards Daddoo and Laddoo who had been dancing to the tune of 'Shiela ki jawani' on one of their
phones ever since they had shown up)
"Abe salon, main tum dono ko chorunga nahi, al leh (turning towards Daddu and attempting to kick his back but missing),
tu bhi le (turning towards Laddoo and attempting to kick his back but missing too)" (missing because both moved out of the way
as part of their dance moves)

Daddoo and Laddoo - (being the freaky and irritating guys they were stated in unison)"i am too sexy for you, main tere hath na ani"

to that Nikhil could only smile and said "Happy friendship day, you SOB's"

The Idea behind Praying

We Indians are very superstitious. Most of us never pray during the good times but always remember to pay homage to the unknown, unseen force when we know that we can only bank on luck now and if there is one entity that can control our luck...it is 'The Almighty' .It is 'divine intervention' that we hope for when we are faced with fear and uncertainty (like the day before semester results are out). What i am going to talk about is why do those, who believe in sparing a few minutes a day to pray stick to this routine for years together , how does it help us and why some of us who usually do not pray tend to get weak and pray only when we do not know what to do.

I would say it is more like exercising the mind for a few minutes and building that sense of belief that what ever i am going to do today is going to turn out right and rewarding in some way. As opposed to believing in an entity or divine intervention it is more of a way to get ones thoughts together so that his or her acts throughout that day are going to be along the right track and bear some fruit. Probably the idea of the existence of the unseen entity was formulated to instil a sense of fear in people so that no one ever skipped praying and thereby having a clear picture of what to achieve and how to achieve during the day.

Most people remember that they need to try to get their thoughts together when they are in trouble. They fall in trouble in the 1st place because they never found the time to get their thoughts together and think about what they wanted to do. So once things go wrong they again have no idea of what to do because they lack the practice required to get their act together and end up finding themselves in a soup. Once in a soup they know that the only way out is to send an SOS for divine intervention and hence they start praying.

Some of the most successful people today believe the work that they do is the karma by which their fate will be shaped and they dont pray. For them their work is equivalent to worshipping any entity and why not, after all,.. the moments that are needed in a day to gather ones thoughts , are moments that these people get while they are actually working and hence not a single thing distracts them. Just like when one is genuinely praying.

Therefore whether it is meditation or praying, it all boils down to getting our train of thought in line, achieving the coherence of thought for us to concentrate on whatever we do through out the day and get something useful out of it. So please continue to do, whatever you do, to make sure your day is rewarding but remember that it must be done a regular basis because just like everything else concerning us, we can improve our thought process to achieve the goals that we desire only with practice.

For those of you who believe that 'work is worship' are well on your way to doing the right things throughout the day (but only with respect to work). After all everything requires experience to be good.

Day of freedom

When I was a young boy I remember playing around a lot with this girl who was our neighbour. We had been living in the same house for 3 years while they had moved in about a year after we did and it did not take long before the two of us became inseparable.We were about the same age, went to the same school and almost everyday left in the morning at the same time with our respective Mothers. I cannot explain what it was that connected us, but i knew that she was the closest friend i had then. Her name was Shonali and i used to affectionately call her 'Shona'.

Describing her is another big challenge because on one hand you had her astonishing looks while on the other hand you had her tantrums, her silent treatment when it came to being angry with something other than myself and her ear splitting screams when the two of us had a fight. But all of this faded into thin air whenever she used to flash that smile of hers at me. With her moony eyes and the dimple on her left cheek whenever she smiled she looked magical .

Shona's mom was a very kind and caring lady too. Very often we used to play on weekends all along from morning till it was lunch time and her mother would always keep lunch ready for both of us inspite of the fact that i used to live a door away and i might very well go back home to have lunch n come back later . Usually at these times my mother would be shouting out my name asking me to come home for lunch and guess what, i used to shout back stating I would be having lunch only with Shona and will come back only after we are done building the Lego structures or after the n'th game of 'Monopoly' or endless games of 'hide and seek' around the house. Initially my mother had a serious problem (quite obviously) with me having lunch every weekend on both Saturday and Sunday but later she resigned to the fact that i would be sticking around with Shona as long as they were our neighbours. I always wished to stay back for dinner too but usually when i used to stay back beyond evening i used to be dragged back home. Shona's mother also put in a word in my favour to mom everytime i stuck around too long at their place saying 'they like playing with each other Nita, i'll take care and it is not a problem at all'. It is probably this very reason why i remember her as kind hearted and sweet, because every time she spoke out for me i got to spend more time with Shonali .

Ever since they had moved in we used to have a lovely time through out the day but as the evening set in and our fathers returned home all of that used to change. The problem was not with my father, because mostly
we used to go out somewhere after he was back home but at Shona's place it used to be different. Often when we returned from our evening out, i could hear Shona's father shouting his lungs out 'I work like a dog the whole day and when i come back home , this is the kind of dinner that i get ? . Why cant you learn to cook properly ? is it that difficult ? cant you even do that ? It is a pity you cannot earn money for the house but you can at least make life easier for me once i get back home !!' . Shona's mother was a housewife .On other days i could hear him shouting at Shona "Your teacher says you are a very weak student and you report card certifies it . You have been failing in maths ever since we have put you in this school. Is this why i am sending you to a private school so that you can waste my hard earned money ? Why do you spend all seven days a week playing with Vicky ? If you don't spend more time with your books i will put you in government school and you can do whatever you want to there . Is that what you want ? ". Shona used to reply back pretty fiercely and equally loud "I like playing with Vicky but i dont like Maths" and then i could to hear her getting slapped relentlesly in response to that. My blood used to boil but i was too young to interfere in another family's problems. I remember being more in a state of shock, staying dazed thinking how could someone raise their hand on someone like Shona in whose eyes one could see nothing but INNOCENSE !!. I never heard a response from Shona's mother when she was shouted at but she always came to Shona's rescue when Shona was at the receiving end, often while trying to protect Shona from the beatings she ended up taking the blows herself.

I had felt most hurt the day when Shona's dad was yelling at her mother after he was back form work stating "Your father could have easily bought us a car and a flat, we did not ask for dowry when i married you but your parents should have given something, then life would have been easier for us today. Or is it that you wanted us to ask , so that once we ended up asking , you could implicate us in a dowry case ?' There was a pause for a few seconds and then Shona's father's typical angry voice signifying hatred could be heard yelling "Now what the hell are you staring at me for, you think i am wrong or do you feel a sense of hatred towards me because i said so? answer me ? answer me god damned ? Wait i'll make you answer me" , what i heard next were a couple of slaps . "You think you can give me that stare and get away with it ? Speak up now ? common shoot ? Dont just give me that stare otherwise i will finish you tonight ". I heard Shona shouting out "Daddy please dont beat mommy" . Probably she even tried to go and stop him physically because the next thing i heard was the sound of shattering glass and then, Shona's cry of pain. It was one of those moments for me where something snaps within you , all the sound coming from everywhere around you becomes inaudible, the only sound that you hear is that of your own heart beating. I dont know what got into me, the next thing i remember was banging on Shona's wooden door shouting "Shona, are you fine? are you ok ? Please dont hurt her anymore". In the mean time my parents came out and were trying to drag me back into the house , while i was howling my lungs out in pain, for Shona because she was hurt, and that hurt me as well. "Shonaaa, why are you not answering? " a couple of more bangs on the door. My parents tried hard but i was reluctant to move from there, they knew i had become sentimental about her for  long time now. All of a sudden there was no more shouting from within and the door opened.

Shona's father gave all three of us a disgusted look, i spotted pieces of glass and drops of blood on the floor. Shona was not in the room, Shona's mother was nowhere to be seen either. Her father spoke out at that point "This is not a good time, please leave us alone". My parents took me back home and asked me not to think about it. But that was the most sleepless night i have ever had. The next morning Shona did not turn up for school, i told my mother that we should check if they are doing fine. Her father had left for office so there would be no problem if we met them. My mother agreed. Shona's mother greeted us in, there was a scar on the left of her lip. I think my mother felt it was best not to ask what happened and hence was mostly silent. When i asked about Shona, her mother directed me to her room . When i entered, i found her lying with her eyes open but with right hand completely bandaged and the corner of her lips were blue. I was...on the verge of tears but i managed to control it. When she saw me she smiled and i was happy that my presence made her feel better.

I skipped school that day , my mother understood that and did not push me. What i  learnt later was that while Shona was trying to protect her mother, she was brushed aside with a wave of her father's arm with such force that she hit the glass table top, in the centre of the room , it shattered and pieces of which had pierced her arm, and at the same time her face hit some hard , blunt part of the table which was the reason for the blood clot around her lip. I had heard Shona's father fight with his wife and daughter ever since they had moved into this house but that day was probably the last straw that broke the camels' back.

Within a couple of weeks from then Shona's mother filed for a divorce. At that point in time i did not know what a 'divorce' meant, i had heard about it but was witnessing it happen in front of my eyes for the first time. It did not take long for the court order to come , Shona and her mother had totally stopped talking to Shona's father , we were not playing any more and life was gloomy, for them because they were going through a tough time, for me because all i wanted.....was to spend time with Shona.

Within a few more weeks the day came when  Shona and her mother had to leave that house in order to move to her grandfather's house in Jaipur.  Their luggage was packed into the taxi which was at the gate , the taxi was waiting, my mother was telling Shona's mother that she could call anytime for any kind of help, while i was holding Shona's hand hoping her mother changed her mind, though i knew they leaving was the best thing for them at the moment. Finally her mother gave her a call saying "let's go beta, we are getting late for the flight". I kissed Shona on her cheek, her mother brushed the hair on my head gently and bid good bye to both my mother and myself at the same time.All this while i was holding Shona's hand,but when she started moving towards the taxi it was one of those moments from the movies when two lovers are getting separated not knowing when they would get to see each other next. I had my hands my stretched out holding hers,  and finally when our finger tips parted i was on the verge of tears. My mother put her arms around me, Shona moved into the taxi holding her mothers hand, looking back at me from time to time. We were standing at the gate next to the taxi, the taxi started and as it moved away from us she looked behind from the rear window and kept waving at me till i could no longer see her along the long straight road. She was gone, probably forever.

I was sad but i also realised it was important for them, because that day was their 'Day of Freedom'. I was reminded of all this because i just got a friend request from Shonali a while ago on facebook, it would be an out of the word experience getting in touch with her after so many years. I hope she is happy wherever she is today.