Quo Vadis?

One movie I enjoy watching during its many reruns on one of the many movie channels on cable is The Distinguished Gentleman starring Eddie Murphy.   We have now ceased to get shocked by mammoth scams that have raped the country by various politicians and have resigned to the fact that politics and scams are like conjoined twins in our country. This movie tells us that we are not alone. Even in the US of A this happens and even there the people have resigned themselves to the inevitability of it all. In case you have not seen the movie, a synopsis of the same from Wikipedia “A Florida con man named Thomas Jefferson Johnson uses the passing of the longtime Congressman from his district, Jeff Johnson (who died of a heart attack while having sex with his secretary), to get elected to Congress, where the money flows from lobbyists. Removing his first name and shortening his middle name he calls himself "Jeff" Johnson. He then manages to get on the ballot b...

A woman on two wheels may be a new symbol of empowerment and I am happy for them. But for some women the road is not the place to be especially on their set of two wheels. Do not think that I am prejudiced or that I am sexist I am simply frustrated that these women are on the roads endangering everyone. A few types of women who should not be there: -       The one in high spirits: You know when a person is high; one of the symptoms can be that the person will not be able to walk in a straight line. Hold that thought and extend it to a woman in front of you on a 100cc odd powered vehicle starting from point A and proceeding to point wherever at an acute angle without bothering about the vehicles behind. Should not somebody tell them that the two shiny things on the bike are not vanity mirrors? -       The one who is always right: These women are always on the right and that is a good thing except when you are on the r...

I have often wondered - Is discipline a product or the carrot or the stick and is there any other option? Can discipline be enforced by simply giving carrots? It is successful considering we have grown up with inducing our kids with something so that they fall in line. When the carrot fails, at least for the kid there was the stick. I say was because now the kid can complain of abuse and can get the parent and sometimes the teacher behind bars. Is there a third way? Can a person be disciplined completely by external stimuli or is discipline inborn? Does a person become disciplined or is he born one? I grapple with these questions each day when I drive when I see the appalling indiscipline on the road. Just today four incidents disturbed me as they all happened in the space of a few hours in and around Anna Nagar. 1.    A school van driver (actually a contract carriage) with school kids drove on the wrong side and mercifully missed a MTC bus that was coming o...

  Life is beautiful because of the little things that we often overlook or take for granted. One such that spurred this post is my daily drive to school with my daughter. That half hour or so was not planned but it turned out that having settled for a school of our choice which was quite some distance away and not having enough occupants for a van it became a part of my daily routine when I am in the city. So what makes a school commute so special? -         ·          Probably it is because it is new only a month or so old ·          Probably it is because the drive is relatively smooth considering I leave by 8.15 am ·          Probably it is because I reach office nearly an hour earlier than usual and so I am fresh and ready for the daily work earlier than usual ·      ...