Bye Bye June, Welcome July

Let us bid adieu to June hot days and welcome July rains with a smile :


Wife called up her husband in office “ Darling, our car is just not starting.”
Husband, with his mind in work “ What seems to be the problem? ”
Wife “ I think there is water in the carburetor. ”
Husband “ OK, where is the car now? ”
Wife “ In our swimming pool. ”



Two cars collided at an intersection around midnight as both the drivers seemed to be in hurry to get to their destinations. Though the cars suffered extensive damage both the drivers were lucky to come out without any injury except being shell shocked. One of them, who was lawyer, looked at the cars and said “ How lucky we are to be alive. ” The other, a doctor, replied in shaken voice “ Yes, looking at the damage no one will believe we are alive.” The lawyer pulled out a bottle of whiskey from his car, unscrewed it and offered to doctor “ Let us have a swig to soothe our nerves.” The doctor took the bottle with shaking hands and took a gulp. As he offered it back, lawyer told him “ Have another good one, you seem to need it.” The doctor took one more and handed the bottle back. On seeing the lawyer putting the cap back he asked “ Are you not going to have one? ” The lawyer said “ I will wait till police arrives.”


Once a very very rich man wanted to start some charitable institution. He along with some other board members was interviewing people for CEO’s job.
He asked first candidate who was a teacher “ What is 2 plus 2 ? ” The teacher looked surprised and answered “ 4 ”.
Next candidate was a statistician. For the same question he replied “ As majority of persons in a survey would say 4, so it should be 4. ”
Next was a philosopher who after pondering over the question for a while scratching his head replied “ I think it would be somewhere between 3.9 and 4.1” .
Next was a Chartered Accountant who on hearing the question signaled them all to be quiet. He got up went to the door, peered outside, closed the door, went to window and shut it. On coming back he whispered “ What do you want it to be? ”


Liz came back home on Monday after having been away for Sunday to visit her ailing mother. On asking her 4 years old son if all was ok in her absence. He said “ Yes, dad took care of everything well and in the afternoon when I was sleeping I heard some noise in dad’s room. On peering inside I saw him and Jill aunt doing …” . At this point she told him to be quiet and tell all when she asks later. When her husband returned from work in the evening, she called the boy asking him to tell what he was saying in the morning. The boys said “ Yes, dad took care of everything well and in the afternoon when I was sleeping I heard some noise in dad’s room. On peering inside I saw him and Jill aunt doing what you did with Tom uncle when dad was away for few days.”

Teaching a child

Our granddaughter had been given assignment for vacations to draw lessons from some incidents in the life of elders. She asked me for some and I narrated 2. I am giving below what this young one of 7 & ½ years typed on my PC :


An Incident in my nana’s life

My nana was in the third standard those days there were wooden slates called takhti one day in the recess my nana forgot his takhti when he reached the school then he remembered that he has forgotten his takhti he said I will make a story when he reached the class the teacher asked where is your takhti my nana told there were some bad boys they took my takhti the teacher asked some other boys who used to go with my nana they said no he did not bring his takhti when the teacher came to the class he asked where is your takhti my nana again made a story the bad boys took my takhti no you are telling a lie have you forgotten your takhti yes I have forgotten my takhti so the teacher made my nana stand out of the class the whole period


Moral : Never tell lie.





An Incident in my nana’s life


When my nana was in sixth standard and when my nana was having holidays and my nana went to his nana and nani house and my nana kept playing the whole day and he could not finish his homework when he went back he tried to finish his homework but he could not finish when he went to school the teacher said you have not finished the homework the teacher gave him two days to complete his homework and my nana had to sit late in the night and do his homework


Moral : One should do work first and play later.


PS : Out of my 17 friends who visit me regularly and I do visit some of them but for others I have NO LINK. I would like to visit them too. May I request you to kindly let me know your link so I can have the pleasure of visiting you too. Thanks

Happy Married Life

Shruti in her post listed out qualities she is looking for in the person with whom she would like to spend rest of her life and I thought that I would replicate my post of August, 2008 in o3.indiatimes here. Though I promised to put it on Sunday but could not wait. This is what I had written with little additions now :

Jitu while commenting on my post “ Why do we accept this ” had asked What is Happy Married Life. I promised that I will write a post on this as it was not possible to reply as a comment. So here I am keeping my promise.

Happy married life does not mean all love & honey with no differences or arguments . It means that inspite of all these, couple stay together and live happily. What are the ingredients for that? I am trying to list some of these, may not be in the order of priority :

TWO WAY COMMUNICATION : In my opinion this is the FOREMOST requirement where couple are in a position to talk things over instead of bottling up and sulking. This includes WILLINGNESS TO ADJUST as well as OVERCOMING EGOS.

TRUST : They both have to have trust in each other instead of trying to find what partner is upto to the point of nagging.

RESPECT : I do not think I need to elaborate this. Respect not only for each other but for partner’s relatives or friends too. They should never ridicule weakness of other.

SUPPORT : They should never have doubts that partner will not support him or her. Be it financially or emotionally.

SPACE : They both have to learn to respect each other’s space.

SENSE OF HUMOUR : They should be able to laugh together on silly things as well as laugh off silly differences which arise from time to time.

LOVE OR ROMANCE : It is important that even after decades of marriage they should be able to ignite romance in each other. It does not mean giving gifts or roses but simple things like saying same 3 words which they used often during courtship period “ I Love You. “ Or holding hands while walking.

PHYSICAL RELATIONS : These may ebb with age but are still an important part of staying together.
I think these may suffice but you all are welcome to add on more traits which I am sure will be there.

IFs and BUTs

In our life how often we say either in wishful way or ruefully –

“ If I get so much money I will do this and that ”

“ If I had been born in the royal family I would have …..”

“ If I had done that I would not have faced this situation now ”

“ But I could have been better off if I had followed what I was doing ”

First taking up wishful thinking. It is good to have dreams but not to let dreams override what needs to be done or could be done under the prevailing circumstances.

Now to the rueful thinking. We fail to realize that it is past, GONE and we can not put the clock back. There is no gain in being rueful “If I had not resigned from XXX company, today I would have been at least Sr VP”. Can you go back and take your resignation back? No, then why feel that way. Yes, learn from mistakes and do not repeat as well as advise your kith & kin accordingly. While advising you may cite your example but not for being rueful.

To give some examples of day to day life –

Many of us do indulge in indiscreet talk about our friends, relatives, colleagues, bosses etc etc. When confronted by the affected party we try to bail ourselves out by saying “ But I did not mean it ”. At times there are stiff repercussions too. We do feel “ If I had not said it all would have been fine ”. What is the use of crying over split milk? We should have been discreet but what is done is done so why be rueful now. Learn from mistake and do not repeat. Few of us still continue with the same and keep using If and But for failures.

“If I had married that girl / boy, my married life would have been so happy”. Alright, you are having a rough time in married life but with this attitude would it improve? So why not take stock of the situation and see how best can you turn it around. If it is so bad that nothing can be done then why not think of options, even hard ones? But just remember that you can clap with two hands. So first it would be prudent to look inside yourself before pointing finger. There is a famous saying “When you point a finger at someone remember that other three fingers are pointing at you”.

“ We were so happy to find this girl for our son / this boy for our daughter BUT after marriage only we realized that how bad she / he is. If only we had known that before we would have chosen the other one whom we rejected ”. Don’t you think instead of thinking in this negative manner should we not put our energy to find solution with proper application of mind? And when I say “ proper application of mind ” it means with truthful introspection. Are we or our son / daughter at fault or not? Only then we see how best to resolve situation. There is hardly any situation which can not be rectified as most of such feelings are imaginary perceptions. An honest heart to heart two way communication can do wonders.

So, what I strongly feel is that we have to leave IFs and BUTs of the past and live in present to see how best we can make our life happy and comfortable. And of course in doing so we make others who matter also comfortable and happy.