Right lane or not?

We were driving back home from a long drive and were stuck in traffic jam just a few hours away from home. After snail-ing for half hour, there came a diversion. We went with the flow and kept in the passing (right) lane, fastest in UK and India.

What a great man was Murphy that his laws get applied to almost everybody, or we remember him in such times only. You may have figured out by now that the other two lanes on other side of diversion were moving faster than us. My friend who was driving us through this mess around road construction doesn’t speak much but after being hammered by Murphy for 15 minutes, he did. While we were taking out our frustration on being in the slow lane through arguments concluding to grass beeing greener on the other side, I remember one of the lines he said (apologies to only English reading people, may a future version of Google translator help you): Zindagi mein bhi hum aise hi kabhi kabhi galat lane pakad lete hain aur baju wali lane pakad ke log age nila jaate hain.

For the next half hour, sometimes we were moving faster and sometimes the cars in other lane. My friend was counting on passing a car in other lane which was his benchmark if we were in the right (or faster) lane. As far as I remember, we were probably in the wrong lane that day.

If I expand this to multiple such occasions, at times we are in the right lane and at times we are not. Although we try our best to be in the lane that’s moving faster, we generally have no control over it unless we pass through that every day and know some break through it that others don’t. Which lane should we be in general circumstances then? I think that’s the dilemma Lord Krishna tried to address when he said – “Karm kiye ja, Fal ki chinta mat kar”, with a translation this time – “Give your best effort, whatever the result be”.

Disclaimer: I've just picked a line from some conversation to relate the conclusion to a real incident. Reader is requested not to read into anyone's personality, except the author's (if at all).

Life or Business - There is a selfish ask

On a sunny day - a rare occasion in London, a random thought crossed my mind. I started thinking of how relationships start and grow / shrink.

Doing a rewind on some of my relationships, I realized that it always started with some “selfish ask”, regardless of the nature of relationship - friend, relative, distant relative, community member, colleague, superior or any ABC XYZ. I could not find an example of relationship with self-less roots. There may eventually be selfless behavior in intimate relationships like a Guru - Disciples, Parents – Children, Husband-Wife.

The magnitude of benefit or the selfish ask may be very small but that’s how it start. It could be as simple as asking for 5 Rupees when you want to pay some Rickshaw-wala when you don’t have it. Or it could be as simple a thing as somebody proxy-ing you in the class. Or it may be someone asking for a change of 10 pence for using a machine while he has a 20 Pound note in pocket. Considering the non-financial aspect, a casual talk in the bar falls under this category as well. It’s triggered by the basic instincts of the social animal. Some of these relationships that start small become legendary as well, like most love and hate stories. Needless to say it would be very strong in life-saving occasions.

So what am I trying to conclude here? I think that if there was a currency to measure the selfish ask, life is business, isn’t it? For those of you who are going to comment relating this to my job, you may be right I don’t know. One might also think why compare life with business whereas all we talked about are relations. Well, I couldn’t imagine a life without relations; after all I’m not a Rock and who knows even if Rocks socialize.

Now that I’ve finished writing this article, let’s think of an exception.  If you find one, please let me know...