Encounter With a Politician

It was one of those sunny days when I was coming back to home after a long business trip. Having a transit time of 5 hrs between two flights and fed up with the food plus  straight faced people in Business Lounge, I had decided to spend time at common sitting area instead. I must say it was a wise decision; because soon I found a cute & bubbly girl asking me whether she could sit next to me. In next 10 minutes  I learnt her to be one of the ABCDs and also an avid globetrotter who after her last visit to India was giving a serious thought about taking 1 year sabbatical to explore each & every corner of  India. I was amazed with her thoughts and soon we found ourselves discussing about Incredible India !!!

Slowly our discussion shifted from travelling to Indian Economy and having stayed in China, evidently talks directed towards comparing Indian progress with that of China. It was this time when a middle aged person sitting behind interrupted us and asked politely, “Apologies for overhearing your discussion but I do not agree with your views on Indian Economy’s Indicators”. Without giving us any chance to talk, he explained further, “I am involved with some of those statistics part so if you allow I can provide you the right information” Once again without waiting for our approval, he started churning numbers to weigh his arguments, “Media is very biased and provide distorted picture only to instigate youngsters like you against ruling party.” Whew !!! we realized that we had been stalked by a seasoned politician !!!

Thereafter we were bombarded with various stories of so called false propaganda by opposition, efforts of derailing economic growth etc for next half an hour !! Fortunately he got a call; my airport friend winked at me and  literally pulled me to the nearest Café.

While we were about to take a sigh of relief, I heard the same familiar voice instructing cashier to debit our bill to him. We knew for sure that those 50 bucks would be costing at least 2 Aspirins and few hours of meditation to come out from all evil scenarios (p.s. happening in our active imagination) of breaking teeth & nose of that guy !!!!

Almost after an hour or so, he stood up from his chair. Thanked us for patiently listening him. Also gave us one last motivational speech “You are the future of India. Even though you do not stay in India, you are our representatives for the world. So please help us spreading right message across !!!!!” And there was a pause.

 
It took us a while to come to our senses and realize that we would be free in couple of minutes !!! Understanding the importance of this freedom and fearing repeat of the drama unfolded some 1 hour back, this time I took my airport friend to the Business Lounge instead !!!

Exhausted by his continuous hammering, I preferred to remain silent for a while. On the other hand, my friend was now in full charge and wondering about having such politicians in US !!! She told me that apart from Obama, she had never seen such passion and fire in any of other politicians !!!! She felt most of the politicians back home were like a shrewd businessman who prefer to do things tactically. Shocked at her admissions, I was trying to figure out whether it’s a genuine one or was that as a result of 90 min of trauma !!!

But somehow I couldn’t resist thinking on her viewpoints. Slowly, I started realizing that she was probably right in a way. The job that man did was spectacular. Its not at all an easy task to interrupt a young couple in an unknown location and talk to them on a worthless topic of Dynamics of Indian Politics for almost 90 minutes despite knowing that the audience is there only because of respect for grey hairs and not because they care for what you say !!!! It requires an exceptionally thick skin and extraordinary patience !!!! Moreover, it requires guts to bombard your ideology with full energy and cheerfulness to an uninterested & atrocious audience.

 The more I started thinking, the more I was getting astonished by various dimensions of the politicians personality. I had faced a lot of office politics & so called political people during my job but when I met the real politician, I felt there was no comparison of that man with any of my previous encounters. There are definitely lot of good things to be learnt from these guys but the most important of those all are (1) “Keep faith on yourself, your ideologies and your communication.” (2) “Have patience till others understand the value behind your ideals.”

Thank God for showing me a lifetime experience.

Malaysian Spirit @ Superseries

In my past 4 yrs in Malaysia, one thing I loved is the obsession of Malaysians for Sports & Music. Go to any café (even Mamak’s shops) and you will find LCD’s placed at each corner displaying Football Match or some Rock Concert !!! Having  ban on consumption of Liquor, Malaysians have discovered spectacularly impressive way of having Mass Hang Over !!!

While drums, bong-pongs, flags & caps start creating its mesmerizing impact on you, the ageless beautiful angels ensure that for no reason you won’t believe that you are a part of some fairytale magic !!!!  Once addicted to this hangover, nothing seems enticing any further.

Yesterday I had one more booze of the same.. It’s a season for Malaysian Open Superseries for Badminton. Semifinals scheduled on yesterday. Fortunately all semis were in between top 10 shuttlers in all categories.  Being a shuttler myself, I did not waste the opportunity to see games of top guys. It was a mind blowing show. As perfectly predicted by Newton’s 3rd Law, for every action in the court was an equal reaction in stands !!!

However, Newton’s 3rd law was no longer applicable when Hot Favourite Malaysian Pair was outclassed by Chienese Pair, !!! Reaction turned from scalar to vector with its direction pointed towards Chinese players and its magnitude was multiple times the action !!!! Whoever defeated Chinese thereafter got a Hero’s Welcome ….

When one of the singles between World no 2 -World no 3 found to be all Chinese, crowd became nervous. Not understanding whom to support, first few minutes were like a sea of confusion where everyone looking across before banging drums or bong-pongs !! Soon the shock wave died and stands started enjoying the game. As they said, beauty wins over brain, slowly the support shifted towards more beautiful shuttler between those two, who unfortunately could not win the match despite the cheer...

The last match of the day was of Local Hero who is World No 1 with Chinese shuttler (World No 3). As expected the whole stadium moved in another world and nothing could be heard except “Boleh !!! Malaysia Boleh !!!” , “Go Red Go !!!!!” and drum beats …. Crowd gone crazy seeing their Hero had edge over his counterpart in the game. Then the golden moment came which everyone was awaiting since the beginning of the day. All the walls of stadium stared shaking when the Hero smashed the winning point. Cheer & Uproar in the stadium was reflecting as if these down to earth people eat, breathe and sleep the sport.      

Unknowingly tears rolled down on my cheeks !!!!