Autobiography of a lamp-post and the fart

At school, we were once asked to write an autobiography of a lamppost for Hindi exam, I put on my thinking cap and started something like,

“I want to reach for the sky, but have to withhold my desires to give light to others”.

I thought it was a brilliant masterpiece, half expecting my Hindi professor to come to me and pat me on my back. Unfortunately nothing of that sort happened, what did happen was that I almost missed failing. I decided that my talent could not be discovered in this small school, and was still proud of my work, perhaps I thoughtsomeone would come across this paper and realize the talent they had not explored years later… I was happy with my thought till I saw my review. Red circles all around. Eg Instead of writing, “uske baad”, which means “After that” I had written “Uske paad”, which sort of means, “His fart”. I guess that did not go too well with my professor.

This has happened to me yet again when I went for an IQ test. I went confidently, and realized I seem to be at least 1 year older then the rest of the kids. The objective questions seemed simple, and I ticked away happily. 2 days later my dad got a call from the institute that conducted the IQ, requesting that I meet them along with him. I felt, “hey now here is something. I am quite sure they must have found my IQ high”, and was very excited about the prospects of being a child prodigy. As I was about to sit down at their office, I heard the reviewer say to my dad “your kid is different”, the tone in which he said it did not sound good at all. He went on to explain how I had answered most questions right except for the mechanical wheels one (you know the ones where they ask, wheel A is attached to wheel B is attached to C attached to D, which direction would D move. The design is more complicated then it feels). He said perhaps I feel they should work differently. Indeed I do!

During my computer degree at engineering college we had the habit of hitchhiking to college. A neat car stopped once and my friend and I jumped in. Since it was a long drive I started chatting with the guy, who was running a factory at Verna. After sometime he turned to me and said. “You are a very interesting person, I may have a business proposal for you, would you be interested?”. My joy knew no bounds, I have not even finished my engineering, and businessmen want to offer me business proposals, I am unbelivable. “Of course” I said, “what do you have in mind?”. He told me he would come to my house and explain me all that in the evening. Being the polite kind, I offered to go to his place. On the way he threw some business jargons which I had no clue of, but tried to remember so that I could yahoo (google was not born then) them later. At college I rushed to the internet section, and also called few friends who were doing business studies to clear some terms.

Feeling confidant I went to his place in the evening, a big sea-facing house. He came with a big file packed with pages and slapped it on the desk, as he sat next to me. “Alright!”, I thought, “its time to do business”. As he opened the file, I stared at the words “Amway Products” (for those who don’t know, during our time at college, uncles, aunties, doctors, watchmen, drivers.. everyone was doing some sort of “direct sales franchise”, where not only do you sell some products like soap etc, but also gather more people to sell, for which you are awarded, something I got irritated with as anyone and everyone wanted to either sell you or try to make you a partner). I ran away, my confidence which was so high mins ago, shattered to the ground, and I wondered what do I tell my colleagues who were waiting to hear the outcome.

I guess in life, everyone feels at some point they are exceptional until, realization dawns on them, it did for me. Cheers!

This snap was taken some 7 hours ago on the highway to Mandovi bridge from Porvorim, amidst heavy traffic, as I was clicking this, Van Gogh’s reflection echoed in my mind.

“It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.”

Van Gogh

I wish you all were there to see this sight rather then just view the image posted here.

PS: err .. and no the image title is not stolen from the line “count the headlights on the highway” from Elton Johns song “Tiny Dancer”