Ramlal’s day in an all women’s bank…!

October 2013

(I respect woman. This is intended to be only a light hearted comic article. If anyone’s sensibilities are hurt, my sincere apologies....)

Ramlal had learnt about the innovative idea of starting an ‘all women’s bank, in the budget presented by Chidambaram. Ever since the first branch was opened in Delhi in October, Ramlal wanted to open an account there and experience the feeling of dealing with the women in an all women’s bank.

One fine day Ramlal went to the bank. The bank opened at 10 am, so he was in the bank at sharp 10. However, he found only the security guard there. Ramlal enquired the security where everyone was. The guard replied, ‘Sir, now it is only 10 am. The staff will come slowly; the bank is running away or what? These are all ladies; you know… they have responsibilities at home like sending children to school packing their lunch boxes etc…’

So, Ramlal sat on a chair in the bank and waited for the staff to arrive. And soon, one by one the women started arriving. He noted that as any of the staff entered the bank, other staff would look at her and evaluate her dress and the make-up. Then they would look at one another and give varied expressions of ‘approval’, ‘disapproval’, ‘Criticism’, ‘appreciation’, ‘mock appreciation’ etc. Also, there was a pattern like when C entered, Q and S would look at each other, when T entered, W and Z looked at each other, and so on and so forth…

Slowly the public started gathering and the business started. Ramlal observed that the peon was also a lady and she was carrying the cheques, drafts etc from one staff to another in the hierarchy of approval. However, he also noted that at every person, the peon used to talk with the staff for good amount of time. When the peon was at the staff nearest to Ramlal, he listened carefully and got enlightened that they were talking on various subjects like what food they had cooked today, what happened in yesterday’s serial, criticism of a staff who was absent today etc…

Ramlal’s turn came for collecting cash. He went to the counter. The lady in the counter had started counting the notes, when she suddenly dropped the noted on table and opened her purse. She took out her mobile and started talking on phone. She appeared to be too excited to talk. The phone call went on for full 12 minutes. After completing the call, the staff said half apologetically, ‘Sorry, this was an important call. It was from the neighbor of my cousin’s sister-in-law. He daughter’s marriage is fixed. I am so thrilled you know…they were looking alliances for her for 6 months now, they had some conditions about the type of boy, blah blah…’ The staff informed full history of the person about to be married, in next 7 and half minutes. Ramlal had to frequently show expressions of inquisitiveness, surprise, happiness etc during this discourse.

However, after he collected the cash, he thought of complaining about the staff. So, he went inside the counter and approached the officer. As he was about to talk to the officer, she invited all the staff to her table and took out a big round steel box from her bag. She gave everyone a piece of vanilla cake which she had prepared first time in the home. He learnt many things in next 20 minutes like the officer had been trying to bake a cake for last 3 months, her earlier three attempts had failed, her children were making fun of her ambition of baking a cake, her husband had challenged that she would never be able to make a cake at all, she had got the inspiration from a cookery show on a TV channel last year etc…Ramlal was also fortunate to taste a piece of the cake. He ate it, but honestly did not feel it worthy of the appreciation showered by all the staff.

Ramlal wanted to complain about the staff and the officer to the manager. So, he went to the manager’s cabin and sat on the visitor’s chair. The manager was weaving a woolen sweater. She stood up from her seat and came near Ramlal. She put the portion of sweater on Ramlal’s shoulder to take measurement. Then she said, ‘Please don’t mind ok, I am weaving the sweater for my husband. The winter is approaching fast you know… my husband is of same physique as yours. So, I thought why not to confirm about the size once…’ and she laughed semi-artificially. Ramlal laughed fully artificially.

Ramlal said, ‘Madam, your staff is…’

The manager interrupted, ‘I know … they are all very hard working you see. I have trained them all in that way.’

Ramlal was surprised. He said, ‘No madam, but I wanted to ask…’

Again the manager interrupted, ‘I know I know… you want to know about the safe deposit lockers, right? Don’t worry. We have ample of lockers. We use the empty lockers to keep our Tiffin boxes...Hehehe…’

Ramlal said, ‘Why no one takes interest in work here…?’

The manager was busy in weaving a difficult knot. She half heard him and replied, ‘Interest? Of course, we pay interest on deposits. And you know what... we charge interest on loans also. I don’t remember exactly what are the percentage rates and all those details. I think the rates vary slightly with duration …!’

Now Ramlal was fast losing interest. He tried one final time, ‘Madam, why don’t you try to understand? I am here to complain about your staff….’

The manager said, ‘What happened? You did not get your piece of cake? Or you got lesser cash from the counter? You people have no business other than complaining? Why can’t you see women progressing? All men are same…’

Ramlal quickly realized that the discussion was going in a dangerous direction. He got up from his seat and came out of her cabin thanking her.

His desire of doing banking with a ‘all women’s branch was fulfilled…. Beyond expectations…!    

Manmohan’s advice to Cameron on running coalition governments…!

Recently David Cameron was on a 3-day visit to India. One of his personal agenda was to understand from Manmohan Singh, the secret of running a successful coalition government. For the first time since Second World War, a coalition government was formed in Britain, so Cameron wanted to get as many tips from Manmohan Singh as possible. Manmohan had promised him that he would share his 5 secrets with him.

Cameron found an opportunity on second day of his visit, to secretly learn the tactics. He eagerly started the conversation.

Cameron: Please advise me on how to successfully run a coalition government.

Manmohan kept looking silently out of the window. Cameron thought that he was avoiding the question. So, he asked once again. Still Manmohan did not respond. Then Cameron asked him once more the same question, wondering whether with growing age, Manmohan’ listening powers were reducing. This time Manmohan cleared his throat and said, ‘First lesson is this, as I have done just now.’ 

Cameron was puzzled. Manmohan never said anything and concluded that he had given his first lesson. He looked questioningly at Manmohan.

Manmohan: ‘Do not speak until you are compelled to speak. That is my first lesson. Have you ever heard me speaking? Rarely…! Even in You Tube you have to do advanced search to see some clip where I speak. And if you are really hard pressed to say something, say ‘Ok’. Remember, few days ago I had said, ‘Theek hai’ and it became the most twitted words for a fortnight.’

Cameron was actually surprised at the first lesson. He had heard an adage in his childhood, ‘Speech is Silver but Silence is Golden...’ he was seeing a live example of this proverb.

Cameron: ‘Fantastic sir. I shall implement this immediately upon my return. What is second lesson?’

Manmohan: ‘The second lesson is to use all the investigating agencies work for you. Unearth all the wrong doings of your allies. And then make them realize that you are aware of their misdeeds. Then use the agencies to control them at your whims and fancies.’

Cameron was wondering about this technique.

Manmohan: ‘Now see, I have at least 4 coalition partners who do not like my party at all. Given an opportunity, they would not hesitate for a second to ditch me. But see, I have registered cases against all of them. The cases take ‘convenient time’ for investigation.  So long as they support you, you go slow on the investigation. Whenever you see symptoms of defiance from them, send the agencies and they would all fall in line in a second.’

Cameron felt in his mind that this was like black mailing. However, he did not say so out of modesty.

Cameron: ‘Sir, and what is the third lesson for me?’

Manmohan: ‘Develop some leaders of your party to make provocative and sensational statements from time to time. This will keep all your opponents, media and the public debating about the authenticity of statements made and they will keep debating over the timing, intention, hidden meaning and what not, from those useless statements. This will keep them distracted for time being from real issues and give you a breather. We have some leaders in our party, who do this professionally well.’

This was a completely new idea to Cameron. He was somewhat thrilled.

Cameron: ‘I am already feeling great. Tell me about fourth lesson sir.’

Manmohan: The fourth lesson is called ‘Stock and Throw’. You have heard about ‘Shock and Awe’ method used in wars, right? Similarly, the ‘Stock and Throw’ method is used in running governments. Here what you do is that under the name of reforms, you increase the prices of all essential commodities. The inflation rises and the common man starts feeling the pinch. They will question you. Say that this is essential to beat the recession.’

Cameron: ‘Sir, but how this will help me in running the government?’

Manmohan: ‘My dear, wait. You have only heard half story. After the people are really complaining about the price rise, announce scheme to waive their loans just before elections. This is a wonderful trick which never fails. The common man would have taken loans for his survival and when you waive them off, he starts looking at you like god. So, you stock more and throw less.’

Cameron: ‘Wonderful. I am really excited to know these lessons. And which is the last lesson?’

Manmohan: ‘This technique we have developed recently. It has worked very well so far. There must have been some terror attacks in Britain in the past. And you must have caught some of the suspected terrorists as well. Whenever your government’s popularity is waning, hang one or two of them. That would instantly send out a strong message to the people, and your opponents of your steely resolve to deal with terror, your determination on good governance etc. This will bring back your popularity for some time.’

Cameron was deeply satisfied with the valuable lessons learnt by him from the mute prime minister of the largest democracy in the world, successfully running a coalition government for 9 years in spite of several scams of astronomical amounts, situations of mass uprising against corruption, anger of people against crime etc.

Undeserved success is not long lasting…!

A woman was working as teacher in a school where her son was also studying in the 5^th standard. She did not teach her son’s section, but taught in other sections of primary section. She had a desire to see her son score high marks in all the exams. Her son was an average student and was not getting the scores as expected by her. So, in order to achieve her objective, she slowly developed a habit of seeing the question paper prepared by the teachers for her son’s class and then she prepared her son for exactly those questions. As a result her son started getting almost full marks in the exams.

This was gradually noticed by other teachers as they observed that her son was not so well in answering the questions in class. Then how come he was getting full marks in all the exams? They started discussing amongst themselves about this teacher’s behavior and wondered what should be done to stop this practice. They started avoiding sharing the question paper with her on some pretext or other by saying ‘it is still under preparation’ or ‘it is sent to the supervisor’ for approval etc. However, this did not deter her from her quest of knowing the question paper. She started going to the Xerox machine room to get a copy when the office boy was making copies for the exam. On one occasion she even searched the bag of the maths teacher, which was kept in the staff room, in her absence, to see the question paper.

All her colleagues started hating her for her this habit. However, more they tried to prevent showing the question paper to her, more she started getting desperate to see the paper. It was like an addiction for her. A drug addict becomes desperate to get drugs and is ready to do anything including selling himself. Her love for her son and her strong desire to see her son score full marks in Maths made her oblivious of the change in behavior of other teachers towards her. She was totally unaware of what others thought about her.

Now, who is at fault in this story? Is it the child or his teacher-mother or other teachers?

The child is innocent. He is not doing it by himself. He is being provided the question paper before the exams by his mother. And he is enjoying scoring full marks. He is too young to understand the ethics and morals. Moreover, since his mother is aiding him in this exercise, his little mind assumes that it must be good. He is in danger of developing a self-confidence based on unethical and superficial grounds. He is more likely to not only fail, but get depressed in future whenever this arrangement stops.

The teacher-mother is the main culprit on several accounts. First of all, she is making her child weak. The son is getting habituated to write an exam only if he knows the question paper in advance. He would be at a total loss, to write the exam without knowing paper in advance. She is spoiling her son’s future. Secondly, she is damaging her reputation as a person in the school. Other teachers lost respect for her and they started hating her for her this attributes.

The other teachers also deserve some blame by not letting the teacher-mother know that they all know about her such behavior. They were just straining their working relationship with her without letting her know the reason for the same.  And ironically, she continued to wonder why were all teachers behaving erratically with her while she has been so nice with all of them always?

In life, many times, people get so possessed by a certain desire that they just blindly pursue their desires without any thoughts about other things like reputation, morality, ethics etc. And then one day, when they get exposed, they only repent for their behavior and regret for their actions. However, it is too late by then. If only people had wisdom to think at every stage whether they were on a right track or not, the world would be a much better place to live in.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, every sinner pretends to be a saint till he is caught… and often, morality is practiced due to lack of opportunity.

Valentine's Day - the world wide trends.

Come Valentine’s day and people all over the world plan to express their love. The market get’s flooded with Red color flowers and greeting cards. In recent years, it has become a fashion to wish one another a Happy Vlentine’s day just like we wish Happy New Year. We look at the origin of Valentine’s day and some interesting trends worldwide on the manner in which this day is celebrated.

The Valentine’s Day is the most celebrated day around the world after the New Year day.

The most popular theory associated with Saint Valentine was that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire. During his imprisonment, he is said to have healed the daughter of his jailer Asterius. Legend states that before his execution he wrote "from your Valentine" as a farewell to her.

In the UK, just under half of the population spends money on their Valentines and around 1.3 billion pounds are spent yearly on cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts, with an estimated 25 million cards being sent.

The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately 190 million valentines are sent each year in the US. Half of those valentines are given to family members other than husband or wife, usually to children. When you include the valentine-exchange cards made in school activities the figure goes up to 1 billion, and teachers become the people receiving the most valentines.

While sending cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts is traditional in the UK, Valentine's Day has various regional customs. In Norfolk, a character called 'Jack' Valentine knocks on the rear door of houses leaving sweets and presents for children. Although he was leaving treats, many children were scared of this mystical person.

In South Korea, similar to Japan, women give chocolate to men on February 14, and men give non-chocolate candy to women on March 14 (White Day). On April 14 (Black Day), those who did not receive anything on 14 February or March go to a Korean restaurant to eat black noodles and "mourn" their single life.

Japanese chocolate companies make half their annual sales during this time of the year.

In Saudi Arabia, in 2002 and 2011, religious police banned the sale of all Valentine's Day items, telling shop workers to remove any red items, as the day is considered a Christian holiday. In 2008 this ban created a black market of roses and wrapping paper.

On Valentine's Day 2011, Malaysian religious authorities arrested more than 100 Muslim couples concerning the celebration ban. Some of them would be charged in the Shariah Court for defying the department's ban against the celebration of Valentine's Day.