Give Us Our Pound Of Flesh And Take The Body!

GIVE US OUR POUND OF FLESH AND TAKE THE BODY!

Let us say you have fifteen books in your shelf and each book has a number pasted on it – from 1 to 15. There are many ways in which you can arrange the books - in the ascending order – 1,2,3,4,5,6.. etc. or in the descending order – 15,14,13,12,11 etc. or in a different order 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,2,4,6,8,10,12,14 etc. or in any way that you may choose.

Now can you guess in how many possible ways can you arrange those books? And suppose it takes just a minute to complete one arrangement how much time will it take to complete all the possible arrangements?
You can not hazard a guess even in the wildest of your dreams – for it will take 24,87,996 years - that is close to TWO AND A HALF MILLION YEARS - to complete all the possible arrangements. If you don’t believe this try this at home and send us a competition post card if you complete even a day before 24,87,996 years! As usual attractive prizes are waiting for the early birds!

If there are so many ways to arrange just fifteen books on a shelf, then imagine how many ways should be there to organise the ways of our lives? How many possible solutions would be there for our real-life problems?

This happened fifteen years ago. A person had admitted his aging father for treatment in a private nursing home. The Doctors did their best; but the old man succumbed to his illness.

The hospital insisted that its bills should be settled in cash or DD before the dead body was taken away.

ATMs were unheard of in those days. It was a Saturday afternoon. The banks had closed down for the week and would not open till Monday morning. The son who had come from abroad did not want to take loans from relatives.

He pleaded with the hospital Chief for time till Monday morning to pay the bill or else accept a cheque from him as a special case. And he requested with tears in his eyes to allow him take his father’s body home for funeral.

The Chief was a stickler to rules and was not prepared to bend them even for a worthy cause like that. ‘Rules are rules’, he thundered to the bereaved son.
That was the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back. The son wiped his tears and said in a stern voice: “All right. You can keep my father’s body. I don’t want it. I am not going to pay the bill. Do whatever you can.”
With these words he left the place.

Then only the Chief realised the gravity of the situation. What could the hospital do with the body? A dead body was no ordinary chattel, which could be auctioned off in an open market to realise the dues.

The nuisance value of the corpse was a million times more than its monetary value, if at all it had any.
The Chief sent for the son and apologised for whatever that had happened. The son was free to take the body immediately. The hospital would wait for the payment till Monday – why even till next Friday or else a cheque was welcome.
“And to compensate for what we have done the cost of transporting the body to the house will be borne by us.”

 

Dear Kamal,
Nice to see you here. In a thread after a gap of three years. And thanks for the nice words.
About my being a TV Guru and giving a speech, may your wishes come true.
And Kamalji whenever your time permits and when you are inclined just visit to my new serial, A LOVE STORY.
You can click the link in my signature.
regards,
sridhar

 

Sriniketan,

you have brilliantly captured the essence of the post. This article later became part of my book, Vetriyin Vidhaikal.

When it comes to life's problems, we do the exact reverse of what women do when they shop for dresses. We choose the first solution that comes to us and do not have the patience to see a thousand brilliant solutions waiting for us in queue.
thanks for the fb, Sri.
sridhar

 

Dear BAS,

A BAS has to know about the product she ambassadors, if that term can be excused. You are now trying to familiarise with the qualities of Boost.

For a while I was a popular trainer among young students and executives. I used to take sessions only on creativity. And I always quote the various incidents in this article.

While in a fix I always remind myself, "sridhar, these are just two ways of arranging the books. there are millions more."
When someone gives me a multi-choice question I always opt for something that is not there (of course not in exams)
When my daughter's friend saw the market survey questionnaire I completed for her, she almost fainted. There were about 30 questions and in none of them did I tick the available options. When she complained I told her that to confine my tastes within some arbitrarily pre-determined choices, was an insult to me. She understood and promptly counted me out of the survey.

Well, I may not fully agree with your friend. And I need not be modest with one's own BAS. So here you are.

Thoughts are for ever flowing in me. I take the pen only when it goes to such an extent that I can't control them.

Thanks for the nice, long fb for a long-forgotten post.
love,
Boost

 

Dear Bhargavi,
I am fine. How are you? Missed you for a long time.
I thought I could see you in the ILites meet on 30th August at Bhooma's house. And then some one said that you attended one such meet and felt left out, because you were the youngest of the lot.
Then I thought the same thing would have happened at Bhooma's house. For most of us were 50 plus, 40 plus and 30 plus. But I would have given you company.
Ok, there's always a next time. Let's see.
This was written in my early days in IL. Ever since I posted this, I used it in a middle to Deccan Herald and made a part of my serial Chikkal 65 published by Kalki in 2001 and made it a part of my book, Vetriyin Vithaikal.

Your observations are quite pertinent. When someone is in trouble, then he won't have the patience to worry about the alternative solutions. My suggestion is that one should let soak this basic thought in one's mind. So when trouble comes, the person will automatically look for alternatives.

Even in offices we get such situations. An urgent work may crop up at lunch time. Either the person has to delay his lunch, which is not good for his health or delay the work, which is not good for his career. We freeze our alternatives and start debating between health and career.
A simple way in between is to have a vadai and some good tea, or some orange juice and do the work. Then go for a proper lunch. Or analyse the work and do the most urgent part and leave the rest for the post-lunch session.

thanks for expressing your thoughts so openly, Bhargavi. That makes me really happy.
love,
sridhar