I was on a long distance call, with a friend of mine dating back to the mid-70’-80’s. He was thrilled at the reconnection and was sharing memories of our times together. Among several things we shared, he reminded me about the humorous things I used to say and that used to be the stand out most of the times we gathered as friends. I reflected back for a moment and said, yes, I was once one, and now for a while I seem to have forgotten that. Anyway going back to what my friend of yester years said and also believing that I still have that streak in me, I decided I’ll pen this just for fun.

Read this and please let me know why you haven’t enjoyed it.

So Much Ado About Nothing...
by TSK. Raman

Are people are hard or hearing these days, at least that's the impression I get and that has nothing to do with the latest technologies. They just want to hold the centre stage and speak about themselves. They are the 'I' specialists. Very self-centred. Most conversations are centered around themselves and just themselves. For a change they will bring in their family – spouse, son, daughter, etc., when they speak. They hardly think. There is no time even to think if they are thinking. There is no defined process to define this process. In the midst of this chaos, I'm trying to find a thought, and that's a lot of hard work you see, this is what it must be like being an archaeologist. ‘Archaeologists’ uncover the unknown and diplomats cover the known. I'm neither, am therefore not sure if what I am going to say in unknown to the known, or known to the unknown.

Honestly, whose got the time to teach anyone how to 'fish' in today's world. You want to live you've got do anything or everything for your fish. Doesn’t that sound a little ‘fishy.’

I like nothing free, except things nature gave me.

There is an old saying the best things in life are free - mothers for instance, the air that we breathe, but how many realize this, as everyone is in a desperate hurry running after more and more and doing airy-fairy things. How else would you describe the mad-rush or people driving on the roads (sorry – no one drives, at least not in a place like Hyderabad, they just fill the gaps, in front of them).

Everyone around wants to 'win' everything, and no one know which race they are in. In the midst of this desperation and cacophony, I am still trying to be happy participating in life. Doing something I feel good, the way I think best possible. I expected to be farther down life's road by now, but I just skidded off the learning curve, because I did not have that aim in life that most seem to have, and now I have just enough ammunition to see my days through. Every action has an overreaction these days, so the best thing to do would be is to be a‘Director,’ of non-action.

The really scary part of middle age is you know you're going to grow out of it. I didn't much care about it then and now I don't care a bit about my age, you see I don’t dye my hair, neither do I stop it from falling. I'm not getting old I'm becoming a classic. In me still resides a 'kid' but not the one who would love to go to school. I didn’t enjoy schooling even as a kid, so there is no way I’ll enjoy it now, for workplaces have taken the shape of schools, tasks, performance, appraisal’s, increments, pink-slips etc. It’s now I realized going to school and that too to the class isn't going to make me a 'classic,' I turned to become one and I don’t know how. It may be because I learnt more when I got out of school and on the road to life. Anyway for me it’s ‘vintage’ stuff.

As a kid, I was pretty light meaning fleet footed, and skinny to the extent that if someone saw me from the side, I was invisible. That apart I really loved playing, among which I enjoyed flying kites as it soars into the sky and I felt as if I was flying with it. I remember people telling me to be careful as the weight of the kite and the lift it gets with the wind, might lift me along with it. Nothing like that happened because I used a rope which bound me to a pole, to keep me secure and bound to the ground. I had a competitor around me there too and that was a mischievous cow which our neighbor milkman always tied to the pole, because he had no other place to tie it. This kept me on my toes always, a slight lapse of concentration would mean a knock, a bump on my backside by the cow. Poor skinny cow it had to take it’s anger out on someone you see. And I was not keen on becoming it’s victim. This lesson helps me even to this day. Whenever I feel I am involved in something I can see a lot of bulls around me, who are mentally tied down, and are physically 'milked' out of energy, and I refuse being cowed down. That’s the secret my ‘energy.’

Now that I am a senior citizen, while flying kites people say I've leased it for a walk, I enjoy it even more if it is downhill, I'm then para-gliding. Whatever be it, I enjoy myself, I get to run, fly, and walk, all of which adds to keep me fit.

So that's it Just live your life to the fullest...　

Moral:Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it's understood.