A Slippery Soap!

I am confused. On one hand we say that a job well begun is half done. And we also say that all is well that ends well. I am known for perfect planning in respect of tasks entrusted to me. I foresee problems in implementing it and make allowances for them. My planning ability has become synonymous with perfection. Despite such erudition in planning, nobody entrusts me with any job! People say that most of the tasks assigned to me remain half done since I begin them well! That’s the unkindest cut of all but I am not unduly perturbed by such comments. Being very magnanimous, I let them have their fun at my expense.

This morning I had one of the rare experiences when I admitted to myself that a good end was more important than a good beginning. The day started very well and I was in an unusually chirpy mood. I tried whistling a favourite song of mine but gave it up as my mouth was filled with foaming toothpaste. I mentally told myself that an intelligent person would not waste his talents if the time and place did not suit the occasion. Sorry for the digression! I have not told you why I was in such a chirpy mood that I was even about to start whistling a song with a mouth full of toothpaste. 'It is elementary my dear Watson,' I said to my image in the mirror with a huge grin.
Brushing was followed by a steaming tumbler of coffee which I sipped drop by drop and listened to a lilting instrumental version of some well known Sufi song. My wife came to the balcony where I spent my mornings in communion with nature. ‘I have kept a new bar of soap in the bathroom as the one you are using has become thinner than a potato chip' she informed me rather contemptuously. Though I was sorry to bid goodbye to that wafer thin soap, the news that a new bar has replaced it gladdened my heart.

I gleefully entered the bathroom and picked up the new oval shaped bar lovingly. It smelled great as all new bars of soap would. This technique of soap makers always impressed me a lot. I wondered how they manufactured soaps that smelt heavenly for a couple of baths and became odourless thereafter. I made a mental note to discuss this matter with my friends at our next rendezvous. I was always held in high esteem by my friends for my ability to make our meetings meaningful with such stirring topics!

I filled the bucket with lukewarm water and closed the toilet lid. I have this habit of letting these oversized bars of soap slip out of my palm and to ensure that they did not fall into the toilet, I always kept it closed with the lid. Such wisdom comes to us over a long period of unhappy incidents.
As the first mug of water touched my body, I broke into a song. My wife knocked at the door and asked me if I had swallowed the soap instead of using it for its intended purposed. ‘Only you can make such hideous noise' she said in a disdainful voice. It didn’t bother me at all as I increased the pitch of my song.

I finished soaping all over my body and finally my face with my eyes closed. It was precisely at that point, the soap slipped out of my clumsy palm. I could hear it hitting the floor and I knelt in that direction to retrieve it but I couldn’t find it. I started crawling on the floor like a child while running my fingers on the floor. I remembered what an experienced friend once told me. ‘When a bar of soap slips out of your hand, it normally slides and lodges itself in the remotest and most inaccessible corner' were his prophetic words.

Until then I never knew that there could be such inaccessible spots in a bathroom probably because we always made a beeline to the shower and get out when the bathing procedure ended, and get out by the most direct route. But soaps are different. They love playing hide and seek with the user. As my hands reached all nooks and corner, I collected a lot of flora and fauna but not the soap. It then dawned on me that I should start searching with my eyes open and it occurred to me that washing my face could restore my vision. I got up and did that. My restored vision fell on my soap lying in a corner fully covered by dirt and what not. It had lost it’s original glitter and looked like a rat chased all over the world by a venomous cat. I was in two minds whether to clean the dirty bar and use it or to return to my wafer thin soap. I thought of the fury on my wife's face when she heard what happened to the new bar of soap. I hastily washed the new soap to a glittering finish and placed it respectfully in the soap box. With a sigh I told myself ‘All is well that ends well'

 

To whomsoever it may concern!
Be it known, be it known!
Rip Van Winkle has woken up from his slumber!

 

@Viswamitra bhul
My dear Sridhar

Out of my 80 odd years thus far I have spent considerable time time on this subject. The more I thought about it, the more confused I got! There was a time when the book 'Ends and Mean by Aldous Huxley used to be my Bible and we had discussed this enough in the bank where I was a senior executive till our hairs became grey or we became bald! We always talk of ends and means and not vice versa. That doesn't make ends more important than means.
If we go by Thiruvalluvar's words
இதனை இதனால் இவன்முடிக்கும் என்றாய்ந்து அதனை அவன்கண் விடல்
means assume greater importance than the ends.
Personally I feel that the ethical standards in achieving whatever we want to achieve are more important and that puts means ahead of the ends!

 

@gamma50g
Dear g50g

I am a Mysore Sandal man right from the days of Jayachamaraja Wadiyar and it makes me feel like a distant cousin of his! Talking of soaps, I must tell you of an incident in a Rotary Club meeting. On a meeting day, we had a guest lecturer who prided himself as an expert psychologist. He prided himself of his ability to size up a man by the kind of soap he used. A couple of people told him of the soap brand they used and he reeled out some bla bla. Then one person stood up and announced that he used Lifebuoy soap. The speeker immediately told him that he was an introvert and that nobody would come near him!

 

@jayasala42
A friend of mine who has the habit of conceptualizing every subject that he talks of once told me that a soap should fit into our palm which is more important than it's fragrance and price. I entirely agree with him being a person who holds the Guinness record for losing maximum number of soaps in the commode!
I am told that the eel is the most slippery thing in the world. A boss of mine in the bank used to be known as an eel for his habit of dodging when it came to taking a decision!