Analyze & Attempt ~ This week




SALT ~ This week ~ Analyze

One evening as I reached home from my office I saw some of my mom's friends biding good bye and leaving our house. Everytime my mother has such get-together with her friends she would be fully loaded with ammunition [ By ammunition I mean gossip here ] waiting for a target. That day she found me readily available.

( An honest confession here, I love these sessions as it gives me a lot of insight into people's psyche, though I pretend to be least interested!)

She began the firing, ' You know what happened with Sujata Aunty?' I looked at her with a puzzled look. As if waiting for this signal she started firing fast,' You know her daughter-in-law Sheila, look at her guts. She abused Sujata aunty today. Rama..... Rama ....what is happening to this generation I don't know. Imagine talking to your mother-in-law like this and using such words for her...chee...'

I continued drinking water as I nodded in agreement signalling her to continue.She paused for a moment and looked at me. I wondered what did that stare mean now [Well she has a lot of stares denoting various things, a detailed post on it some other time] Finally she broke her silence, 'So...what have you got to say about it? You are a staunch feminist and you talk about equality of rights...so called modern women and all...so tell me....how do you justify this behaviour?'

I smiled and replied,' For any justification I need to know the entire story.' This irritated her, she screamed at me,' I told you na the entire story. Sheila abused Sujata.' I  shook my head as I said' No..not possible.' Interuppting me she asked me, ' What do you mean?' Am I lying?'

I very coolly replied, 'No. I did not mean that. I mean this is not the entire story.See every action has a reaction. Now Sheila would not have just walked up to her mother-in-law and started abusing her unless she is mad, which I am sure she is not. Something must have happened before that. And most importantly what did Sujata aunty say after that? That is also important to know. It is not possible that she just left that place quietly without reacting.'

She: What is all this huh?

Me: Simple logic...even a street dog does not bite you without any reason unless its mad. And here we are talking about a lady who is MA, M Phil working in a reputed college as an assistant professor. I mean why would she do that?

She was too dumbstruck to reply. I made a quiet exit giving the reason of freshening up as I did not want to invite her wrath any further.

Here Sheila was declared a villian and opinion formed about her. Unknown to both these people there must a loyalist group for both who would be fighting within to prove their point. And all this on the basis of an interpretation. Who knows maybe Sheila is a victim, maybe she is not... but then who cares. What we need is gossip to churn after analyzing things the way we want to.

You know we all do this at some point. We listen to what we are being told and judge the person based on that. We interpret it the way we want to and not the way it is. It is imperative that we try to look at the holistic picture before concluding anything at all. I am sure a full size picture is better than a zoomed in view which highlights only one aspect.

Lesson Learnt : Every thing you hear need not be the truth. We all are judgmental at times about people, places and things in a short span without analyzing anything. We need to analyze things the way they are rather than the way they are being shown to us.
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PEPPER ~ This week ~Attempt

Mr. Harsh works at a Chartered Accountancy firm. 37 year old, decent gentleman, someone whom I look up to with respect. I admire his meticulous nature in dealing with things the most. Off late there were some new trainees who had joined the company for internship.

Once as I happened to be there for some work, he was talking to some intern. He signaled me with his fingers asking me to wait for two minutes as he finished his conversation with that intern. Sitting on the couch, I could actually over hear their conversation if I strained my ears a little bit.

That intern was sounding very dejected as he was sharing some problem with Harsh. He was simply not able to find solution to that problem and was trying to explain Harsh how futile all this attempts went. Harsh heard him out very patiently and then sat quietly for few seconds as if in deep thought.

He asked the intern , 'Have you tried all the possible outputs?'. The intern nodded a yes. ' You gave your 100%?' asked Harsh again to which he once again said a yes. ' Then where is the problem?' The intern kept looking at him to understand what exactly was he trying to say.

Harsh continued,' When a door is closed you first push to open it. If it does not you try to pull it and if this also does not then you try to slide it. If all of these fail you simply declare there is no door there. It is just a dummy. Same ways you gave your 100%, tried each possible way to get the results, but still you did not. So just think there is nothing more that you can do about it and move on. Always remember never to judge the other doors based on this or vice versa. And as it is said, you didn't fail you found out numerous ways which do not succeed.'

I loved his words. Such a wonderful leader, and what a lucky intern to having learnt such beautiful lessons so early in life.

Lesson Learnt : This week's lesson learnt is what Harsh said to the intern;

When a door is closed you first push to open it. If it does not you try to pull it and if this also does not then you try to slide it. If all of these fail you simply declare there is no door there. It is just a dummy. Same ways you gave your 100%, tried each possible way to get the results, but still you did not. So just think there is nothing more that you can do about it and move on. Always remember never to judge the other doors based on this or vice versa. And as it is said, you didn't fail you found out numerous ways which do not succeed.

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