Of Actions and Reactions

Wishing a Happy Diwali to all our readers. This is what we say every year, regardless of whether or not We or the Other Person is happy or not. Well honestly we humans as a race are more often than not conditioned to respond in a particular pattern.
Most of the people have a fixed set of responses to a fixed set of situations or circumstances. Are humans such a highly inefficiently programmed species?

Well to begin with, let me state why I brought this up. I for one have always been labeled as “Predictably Unpredictable”. Komodo and AHAK would definitely vouch for that. To a lesser extent Komodo and AHAK would also fall in that category. But then I have always prided myself on this ability. This is something that constantly keeps me surprised as well as the people around me on tenterhooks (much to their chargin). My better half initially would get frustrated but now after almost an year she’s sufficiently experienced in dealing with me and may soon come up with a book “Managing an Antagonist” which in turn may turn out to be a best seller if people do eventually make up their mind to pick it up and read it but then that’s another part of the story and we’ll deal with it when it comes out.

This Diwali right on Diwali day a maternal uncle of mine expired and so for us it was a rather sad and gloomy diwali. This would be more often the standard line.
Check this out. This Diwali right on Diwali day (at night post 8:30 after cracker time and all that) a maternal uncle of mine did expire but then that was it. No gloom for the departed soul. In a way he escaped suffering that he was subjected to by an alien force (more often called god) for the last 2-3 months. Its only the happy memories that count so it wasn’t a least bit gloomy diwali . Definitely a bit subdued and somber but definitely not gloomy. In situations like these the normal reaction of people coming in is “Bura hua”.. shed a few tears and make life miserable for those in the household and then go back home and chill out having made sure they’ve screwed someones happiness. I guess only 1% of those people visiting the family of someone who has died come with real grief. For the rest is just programmed as in you come to a place someone has died, and add to the gloom and then scoot off.

A few years back I was at a relatives place and a kid I knew who’d gotten real bad marks in 12th came looking for sympathy. Now again when I got bad marks in my 12th I never went looking about for sympathy but I got loads of it and had any tom dick and harry giving me sympathy I didn’t need. I guess that’s why I learnt surfing probably to get over sympathy waves. That apart, flashback to the time when this kid came to me with a look that deserved an oscar for the most tragic role. I asked him like what happened and he told me. And that’s it. All he got from me was “Oh that… chuck it”.
Few minutes later I realized that he was staring at me with a plea “gimme my quota of sympathy” which I never did. But then even that time I was wondering “whats the big deal about all this programmed reactions??”

Life has a habit of screwing around with me when I least expect it probably that’s why I’ve taught myself to be the way I am. Komodo’s best trait comes very handy to me here.. “If you cannot convince.. then confuse”. I guess that’s what I do.. (the erstwhile team had a term for this behaviour “Arbit” and I was supposedly a master of “Arbit”) when life wants and expects you to lie low.. refuse to lie low… that confuses the eternal confuser.. maybe that’s my way of looking at it.


A hilarious incident comes to mind when I mention this. Me and komodo were once coming out of office and one dude coming from a floor above as asks me as soon as I enter the lift “is the server gonna be up today” I simply answered “ nah not today” . I didn’t even know what he was talking about but this was one spontaneous reaction that came out and I guess it didn’t harm anyone as well.

As a kid I was told by my parents not to talk to strangers coz strangers had this way of getting to know about you and your family and then kidnap you. So while I was in class 8 once I was traveling in a state transport bus from the city of “Bapu” to the city of “Bapus” (take a guess). And then one dude got pretty friendly with me and my sis. My sister , being the obedient conformist that she is didn’t talk but then I got chatty with him and in the end the dude happily got down at his station having spent the last hour and half having talked to “gautam kakkar” from delhi going to the city of “Bapus” to participate in the junior national chess competition.

Life is really so much more fun when you don’t know what gonna hit the other person Next.


Cheers and Happy Diwali from Antya , Komodo and AHAK

The Antagonist