How to Sleep in Front of Your Boss with Your Eyes Open

Reread the headline. I am not saying it as in some kind of a practical joke at the end of which you jump on your feet with a wicked smile on face shouting, “I got you!” I am talking about the real deal.  Actually dozing off with your eyeballs wide open while your butt rests on the chair and when your boss is thumping fists on the table as if he were playing Super Mario. So I think it is safe to assume that you have never tried to pull off something like that. But as they say, it’s never late to try something new.

Well, in this case, luck is riding in our bus. Because even science says that technically sleeping and closing eyes are not cousins by blood. It’s somewhat like those gangs of boys flourishing within half mile radius of girls’ hostel. They are there, but they don’t necessarily have to be. Okay, bad example. But it’s still accurate. Anyways, so what I mean is that sleeping just means dropping your level of consciousness to subconscious awareness. Most people find it bake-cake easy to do when their eyelids break their visual contact with the world. So basically closing eyes isn’t sleeping itself; it’s just something that helps you sleeping. In fact with half the concentration and efforts you devote in studying girls’ anatomy, you can do away with it.

I can say with the confidence of a prisoner having faith in making a successful escape, that it can be done. Beyond Doubt. To begin with, there are some who have showed their mettle and proved to the world that it can be done. One example is Jean Reno. Not in real life though; in reel-life. In much acclaimed movie Leon the Professional he plays a hit man, Leon, who sleeps with one eye open to be on his guard. In birds, owls are seasoned players when it comes to sleeping with one eye open. Even fish sleep with their eyes open; they don’t have eyelids. In the history of human behaviour, it has been noted that people with special medical conditions like sleepwalking or lagophthalmos, take to sleeping with eyes open. I agree, while these examples may not be motivating enough to encourage you to have a go, they are still a lesson-worthy.

Initially you may have tough luck not closing your eyes. But don’t just drop your weapons yet. I have this cool trick which can give you a boost to survive through the initial wave. If you have seen Mr Bean’s Holiday, you must also remember how ingeniously he pops up matchsticks between his eyelids and eyebags. Note down this trick in your book, because in the first stage, it can come in real handy. Once you get the hang of it, you can move to the next level. Now you don’t need matchsticks anymore. Just grab a magazine or a book and cover your face with it, whenever you sleep, while you keep your eyes open. After practising it for a while, you will be ready to sleep with your eyes open without any props. But don’t go overboard; I would say it’s wise to master the art before finally entering the boss-round.

Just think of how many doors it will open for you. Boring lectures can become history. You can lend your eardrums to your wife, without actually having to listen to what she has to say. You can party till late night, and then wake up early and pretend reading or working on your monitor, while you sleep with your eyes open. This scheme is a like a financial wizard, where you can earn returns as high as you wanted, with just a token amount of investment. But to reap the benefits of this malicious scheme, you will have to step out of your comfort zone. Get up and give it a shot.

Did you know that we waste a third of our lives sleeping? Well, at least now you can pretend not wasting it!

The Power of Failure

Yes your retinas have read right. The power of failure! Success has hoisted its flag on majority of the written, spoken or audio-visual creation. We are so head-deep in savouring the joys and euphoria stemming out of success that nobody is talking about where it came from? Success is not orphaned; but often, fraught with perils of abandonment, we are afraid of catching it by shoulder and popping the question, “who is your father?” Because more often than not, failure is the father of success! But like an ungrateful son, having inherited a respectful status in the society, it feels ashamed of its not-so-elite father and is keen on covering its tracks and closing the chapter on him. That’s why we see the success glowing in the flashes of shutterbugs, not the failure sitting in a dark corner.

Many of you will shake your head in acknowledgement when I say Thomas Alva Edison fathered the invention of light bulb. But how many of you know that before that he failed more than a thousand times at it? Ah, and for doubt maniacs, not figuratively, but literally. 1000-plus times! I bet, flicking through the pages of history, you would bump into zillions of such examples where initial failure has been followed impeccable success.

So is that it? The ultimate success-mantra? That you have to taste the dust of failure before getting to savour the cherries of success? Well, that’s the tricky part. Failure does not imply success but success, in most cases, does imply failure; whatever of sort. Sounds mindboggling? Let’s throw some light on ear-gripping words that Thomas Alva Edison said after finally inventing the light bulb. He said that he had not failed a thousand times. He had just succeeded in discovering a thousand ways how not to make a light bulb. That’s the frame of mind which moves mountains.

Each failure that slaps hard across your face teaches you to endure the pain and evade the probability of next blow.  With each failure you come one step closer to success. More than anything, anyone who has suffered defeat at the hands of failure, learns to value true worth of the success in question. That is if you learn your lessons the right way.

If you have been showered with success in life, you can become a good leader. And if you have been through the dark alleys of failure, you can become a good teacher. Success is a destination, itinerary to which is full of hardships. It is these hardships that test your character. They define what you are made of. Quickly melting ice-cube or ungiving alloy. It is what decides your odds of getting a hug from success. Yes, it is the power of failure!

If Something Can Go Wrong, It Wiil

In 1949 an American Aerospace Engineer was in-charge of a testing flight project. Cutting the long story short, one day he observed that someone had arbitrarily plugged all the wires of a machine into misconfigured sockets. It was like wearing right shoe in the left leg and left shoe in the right; a mistake which could only be committed intentionally. However the engineer could not stop wondering why someone would do it on intention.

The engineer was none other than famous Edward A Murphy Jr. The conclusion he zeroed in on became a historical statement known as Murphy’s Law: “If something can go wrong, it will.” Initially no one did notice it seriously but gradually it surfaced as an inseparable substance in day-to-day life.

Recall, hasn’t it ever happened to you; that the day you miss the bus next bus comes late! Books that you do notice everyday hid themselves somewhere when you want to read them! Traffic Police, who never stops you, stops you the day you forget your license! The day you need an early leave your boss asks you for overtime!!

Such incidents always happen in life. When there is any possibility of going something wrong for you, it would. The law may be new but the message is ancient than human beings.

Do you know that the battle of Pearl Harbor could have been avoided if American President Franklin Roosevelt had agreed to meet Japanese Prime Minister Prince Konoye? If an American ambassador (Joseph Grew) had not undertoned the intelligence on looming attack? Even on the day of attack - on December 7, 1941 - Americans received two separate warnings on the imminent attack, but ironically fate deceived them on both occasions. The first warning came when the two army operators stationed near the Oahu island’s northern tip (Pearl Harbor is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii) observed unusual activity on radar. They reported it to a newly appointed officer at the Intercept Center who concluded that the radar was just showing the arrival of American B-17 planes which were due to arrive at that time. Factually they were Japanese fighter planes approaching to attack. The second warning came when The US Department of War, Washington, received an alert somewhere between 9 am to 10 am on the attack (remember the Hawaiian time is 3 hours behind the Washington time, meaning that when the alert was received Hawaiian time would have been between 6 am to 7 am; the attack took place at 7:51 am). But unfortunately at that time radio contact with Hawaii was broken, hence the alert was sent through commercial telegraph. Finally the message arrived at the headquarters in Oahu, four hours later to the attack.

Choices make history but history makes its own choices. It happened because it could have happened. Provided many options of undertaking a task, human beings would mostly select the option which is most disastrous. If there is a God, he would sure be funny. He is laughing on us.

Murphy himself was the first prey of his law. People completely misinterpreted his law. People took it as “Bitter experiences would occur throughout life, only luck can save you.”

The law as a matter of fact suggests that whatever happens we must accept it as a part of life. Life is reflection of selection and rejection. It is also a suspense thriller because you can never manage any disaster in advance. So the essence of Murphy’s Law is to look for fun in pain. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I can’t resist myself to quote Sidney Sheldon’s words here “Life is like a suspense thriller novel, you never know what is going to happen on the next page until you turn it.”

You can't avoid the disasters, but you can lead them away. It is like slowing down the vehicle if you can't avoid the speed breaker.

I Have Done Homework But I Have Forgotten My Notes at Home

Long-forgotten yet intact hiding somewhere inside my heart, I bumped into this phrase while reading this novel by Varun Agrawal going by the name of ‘How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-founded a Million Dollar Company’. There was a chapter titled ‘Mother Swear’ (my best guess) which quoted incidents describing the trickeries we used as kids to deceive teachers. That’s when this phrase met my eyes. As I allowed it to scratch the layers of my heart, dig deep within, it brought back my childhood memories.

‘I have done homework but I have forgotten my notes at home’ is mostly everyone’s favorite childhood cliché. I remember cashing on the popularity and success of this excuse many a times myself. It would work like a charm every time. In the eyes of teachers we were like innocent puppies, well not all of us but most of us. So like well-versed strategists we employed this vulnerability of teachers in the quest of not doing homework and yet escaping from punishment. And there were many variations; it wasn’t completely boring and bland.  ‘At home’ was just a flagship variation of the series of excuses. In fact sometimes the variations were so funny and hilarious that I would impatiently wait for homework-checking-session; provided that I myself had done my homework.

I still remember one of my friends saying, ‘While I was doing my homework, a buffalo came from nowhere and swallowed my notes.’ I have no idea how he mustered courage to say this, nor have I any knowledge of how stupid he thought the teacher was. What I remember is his cheek paying the price of his tongue’s bad. Some other bizarre yet fathomable versions went like this: ‘Ms. I really did it, but my kid sister tore the pages of my homework.’ ‘It was right here before the recesses, someone must have stolen it.’ And the classic one, ‘Ma’am I did not attend the last session so I did not know what the homework was (there were no cell phones, no 140-character-attacks to bombard the notes of every session).

Teachers had always this one favorite comeback, ‘Why did you not forget to eat food.’ Well, we always had answers ready on the tip of our tongue; it’s too obvious food is basic need, homework is not and yet did not dare reply and just patiently waited until teacher stopped word-slapping us. Initially the teachers happily, skeptically or unhappily swallowed our bald-faced-lies, but soon the lies went viral and teachers caught the wind of our ingenious conspiracy. It was then that they nailed the coffin of this golden savior and categorized it under the list of punishable offense. That’s when the things took turn for the worse. The teachers began doubting our insincere sincerity and always bear in mind that a cynical teacher is more dangerous than a wounded giraffe.

Teachers began questioning us like Interpol would drill criminals with history. They started asking us to go back home and bring the notes, call parents to testify whether we really did homework or not, call in the culprits who either with childish innocence or in cold revenge misplaced, stole or tore down the notes. It inspired or rather threatened us to extend our conspiracy and tell a series of more lies; and not heaps of lies, in fact a whole mountain range of it.

But in the end we would surrender to the pressure of ruler on the palm or a slap on the cheek. And then either we were made to bend over and touch our toes or were made to suffer the embarrassment of Murgha Punishment. If ever in my life I felt like abandoning the materialistic comforts of life, it were those moments. In the worst cases teachers would ask us to write five reasons why we didn’t do homework. Of course that should be a piece of cake, except for the fact that we had to get it signed by our parents! Forget about the reasons, with what face you go to your parents and ask them to accompany you in your treachery! Anyway, I am the kind of soul who would appreciate a good idea, even if it has come from my archrival. So let me tell you, whoever invented this idea, must be a genius. Because with this, teachers didn’t even had to touch us and still they got us slapped (ya, beaten too) by our parents.

It won’t be exaggeration to say that climax of unfinished-homework episodes shared striking similarities with that of an action-thriller movie. After all hell breaking loose, we would finally put an end to the chapter, by vouching never to do it again.

You remember that famous saying by William Shakespeare, ‘All's well that ends well.’? Well, it never got along with me. After remaining obedient for a while, I would find my head in the same old trouble again; I have done homework but I have forgotten my notes at home.

Social Taboos of Farting

There is more to farting than meets the eye, or for that matter ear! And it met my eyes when recently I was watching this TVC of Vodafone. In this new dose of ZooZoo ad, a celebrity steps out of his (his because it is suggestively Bappi Lahiri) car, and right then makes the social gaffe of farting. So in that moment it struck me. Much has been written on sugary-sweet topics of love and romance but half as much literature has been dedicated to the clumsy idea of farting. But let me tell you something, not everyone in life walks on the path of love, but I would bet my best fart on it, that if everyone during their lifetime records their each fart, the compilation at the time of their death would be lengthy enough to beat the runtime of even Return of The Kings! So here, let’s take a plunge in the world of farting.

Let’s start with the definition. Fart, in my opinion, is a piece of music that nobody wants to listen to, but everybody has to play. Yes, there is a universal atrocity prevailing towards farting. So much so that once in a bizarre incident in West Virginia State of US a man was held for farting on a police officer. In another such oddball episode, a man in Baltimore city of US was formally reprimanded in a 5 page letter for shooting farts at work place. Thus evidently even if there is no country listing farting as a criminal offense, consequences of farting surely levels a criminal offense. If you fart in public place, people will stare at you as if you are a disciple of He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named. Some people even believe that it is far better to have a cat cross your path than to have a fart cross your anus! There is an undefined guideline of instances when you cannot fart. For example farting during interview is as good as farting on your job offer, farting during sex makes you lose boner (i.e. if you are not on Viagra). The list of fart-makes-you-loser moments, finds no end. But enough with the negativities of farting! Let’s take a less travelled route and peep into its positivities as well.

No matter how rich or poor you are, no matter what status you hold in the society, fart treats everyone with equal respect. Or disrespect. This way, it teaches us lessons of equality; something such that in the achievement of what even the most sacred religious scriptures have met with debacle. See, there is always a flipside to everything. In fact, I have read somewhere that farting after a meal is received as a compliment in some parts of china and Japan. But of course, try it at your own risk; funny advices don’t come with warranty cards.

Fart can also be used figuratively in the war against pollution. How? Some time ago a Chinese millionaire pulled a bizarre yet tongue-in-cheek stunt. To give a wakeup call to people about the rapidly increasing pollution, he manufactured and sold fresh air cans at a price of 80¢ per can. A variety of flavors were named such as Pristine Tibet, Post Industrial Taiwan etc. Next day leading tabloids around the world published photos of some Chinese people drinking fresh air from the cans. But there is a strong belief that people tend to react more aggressively when they come into contact with negative energy. So why not expose them to air filled with foul-smelling farts? Of course, that sounds disgusting and no one would volunteer to take part in such a nose-terrifying stunt. But that’s the point, first you make them suffer fart-attack then preach that if not stopped, pollution will make air unbreathable.

Ok, if you ask why not sell polluted air straight away, well, simply because it is noxious and harmful to health. On the other hand foul-smelling-farts are pretty much innocent!

I have a lot of things to talk about farting, like when to fart and when not to, how to recognize farting alerts (of course one’s own) etc. etc. But that I will continue some next time. I think this much dose of farts is enough for a while!

By the way, in homeopathy, people say that if a substance can cause certain symptoms in a healthy person, the same substance can also cure symptoms in a sick person. Does it mean that a frequent-farter can be cured if left vulnerable to smell own farts?

There and Back Again, a Fairyland Close to Millions of Hearts

It was one of the usual nights. Time was something past eleven. I was all set for my late-night movie show; earphones equipped in my ears, and my lap caressing laptop. Particularly curious, to discover what a prequel to my favorite trilogy had to unravel. As soon as I begun to lose myself in the eye-enchanting cinematography and ear-pleasing sweet melody of The Hobbit, an Unexpected Journey, all the memories of past came flooding back to me.

I remember the first time I watched Lord of The Rings (LOTR). It was a Saturday night, I was just kid then. I and my brother had bought a 3-disc CD of Fellowship of the Ring. It absorbed me like a magnet; I was moved to the core. It left an everlasting impact on my tender mind. The same feelings welled up inside my heart, when I watched this sweet mythological melancholy dissolve itself into the unknown lands; from where it came; in the next two parts.

I believe without a shadow of doubt that if you have indeed felt this story by heart, you must have, at least once, wanted to play in the placid greenery of Shire, wanted to wander in the elvish terrains of Rivendell, wanted to venture into those mystic caves of Moria and magical forest of Fangorn, wanted to fight those legendary battles and last but not the least on the wish list, craving to go in the city of devil, Minas Tirith and Mordor.

The fascinating story-teller Bilbo, who even if being a heartwarming Hobbit, can’t resist the dark powers of the Ring. The puzzling wizard Gandalf whose nuggets of wisdom guide the fellowship.  The naughty and playful Merry and Pippin, who have a knack of finding themselves in the trouble. The brave-heart Aragon, and his fearless companions Gimli and Legolas. The protagonist Frodo and  soul-touching friendship of Sam. Its characters, story and interwoven subplots, music, sets everything is so captivating and enigmatic!

If LOTR is magic, Hobbit, I would say, is magical and should not be compared with LOTR. While LOTR was more on the darker side, Hobbit unfolds lighter elements. In any case, I am more than happy to run in that fairyland again, as any die-hard fan, any curious child would.

For Those Who Despise Gandhi

Immaterial is the question, whoever it is, only that of a man lost in his soul and deeply inhuman, would bear the shame in its heart of having disdain for Gandhi. He was the man of courage who not only marched on the right path himself, but also inspired millions other. That though, having been foretold many times, does nothing to mitigate its true value.

Where the politicians of this age figure it quite unmanageable to maintain a line of discipline, he with mere noble thoughts in his mind had mastered himself in the art of doing so. The whole nation danced upon his words.

We are indebted to him and to all other freedom fighters. They shed their blood for ‘SWARAJ’.  Even today their glorious deeds sow seeds in hearts of many to rise on the path of a rebel.