Of Men and Women

Pawan Verma

Life is indeed cruel to men. When they are born, their mothers get compliments and flowers, when they get married, their brides get presents and publicity and when they die; their wives get the sympathy and the insurance money. I sincerely believe that whosoever termed the fair sex as the weaker sex has done an unfair thing since the weaker sex is indeed the stronger sex because of the weakness of the stronger sex for the weaker sex.

The word is full of men who convert this weakness into a life-long bondage, euphemistically called ‘marriage’. Alas, they forget that as bachelors they were very longingly looked upon by the fair sex as ‘a thing of beauty and boy forever’ and they roamed around like a rolling stone that gathers no boss. But, like fools, they rush in into a venture where even angels fear to tread. They are perhaps too innocent to realize that marriage is the name of a game where the man loses his bachelor’s degree and the woman gets her master’s degree.

But different bachelors have different compulsions to walk into this bondage. Sometimes stealing a kiss leads to ‘life imprisonment’ – a perfect example of crime and punishment. Some others walk into this trap after calculating that it is cheaper to marry the girl and keep her home than not to marry and take her out.

But those who marry in haste repent at leisure as well. It is true that marriages are made in heaven but when the couple joins hands on earth, it becomes just another union that defies management. As the resonance of the wedding bells recede into the background the notes of discord start appearing and gradually the ‘better half’ becomes the ‘bitter half’. It does not take long for the man to start wondering what happened to the girl he married and for the girl to wonder what happened to the man she didn’t. But most often the discord happens on account of the average husband’s ambitions to be able to afford what his wife is spending. As it always happens in such cases, the joint account is never over-drawn by the wife; it is always under-deposited by the husband.

Old couples, however, say that such differences between husband and wife are only the spice of conjugal relationships; for, where there is no difference there must be a vast degree of indifference. The harmony arising out of love is the essence that sustains marital happiness. It has certain well-defined secrets. To be happy with a man you must love him a little and understand him a lot. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and understand her a little. Mutual trust and confidence is the other touchstone of marital harmony, as every husband expects himself to be his wife’s first love while every wife hopes herself to be her husband’s last romance.

In the ultimate analysis, however, marriage turns out to be an American cafeteria: you choose what you like, and pay for it later. What you pay and how much you pay depends upon your luck. For, it takes quite a bit of luck to make a wife out of a woman. Remember! God created Woman after Man, and ever since then she has been after man.

In the Service of God

Pawan Verma

God is highly disturbed. He surveys the universe and finds everything to be in order. But as he looks around, he finds his own heaven in trouble. Once again, his arch-rival Satan has raised his ugly head and is trying to create problems.

This is not for the first time that Lucifer has raised his head against God. Ever since he was banished from heaven. Satan has been making sporadic attempts to carve out a niche for himself in heaven with the help of his army of devils.

Although repulsed by God every time, His forgiveness has only encouraged Satan to carry out his evil designs time and again. However, this time, Satan is up to some new misadventures. Afraid to challenge God in a direct conflict, he is playing hide and seek and is trying to gain a foot-hold in heaven by infiltrating his evil angels therein.

The crisis has left God in deep emotional distress. Not that there is any dearth of brave soldiers in heaven to take on the challenge of Satan. The heaven is full of brave warriors from all around the world – martyrs from the Vietnam War, Gulf War, Kosovo Conflict, Afghanistan War, Kashmir War etc. They all had been brave soldiers who had fought for their motherland, sacrificed their lives and got a well-deserved place in heaven.

Trained and experienced in all aspects of modern warfare, these warriors can take on the challenge of Satan any moment and drive the infiltrators out of heaven. But God has a conscience problem. These warriors, who had fought wars, excelled in bravery and valor and vanquished their respective enemies, had not always been on the side of truth and justice. They had often been on the sides of the aggressors, killing God’s innocent followers and committing oppression and atrocities on them.

Hence, even though God has been able to marshal only a few warrior angels to fight the mighty army of Satan, He would simply not deploy these tainted warriors in his war against Satan.

As God is brooding over the problem, he gets a glimpse of the Indian soldiers who have marched to heaven after laying down their lives in the Kargil war in Kashmir. These soldiers have left behind tearful eyes and chocked emotions on the earth. And yet here they are marching with their heads high and with a vision and purpose in their eyes.

As the Indian soldiers present themselves before God one by one, they are garlanded and given a salute by the angels. God has been waiting for them. His face brightens up and he cheers them up as they march past in attention.

Major Sarvanan, Sqdn Ldr. Ajay Ahuja, Capt. Aditya Mishra, Rifleman Subhash Ashurbha Samap, Sepoy Madhukar Nikam, Capt. Amol Kalia, Lt. Col. Vishwanathan, Capt. Vikram Batra...the list is endless. These are the brave soldiers full of guts and grit, determination and dedication, valor and bravery, whom God has specifically chosen to lead the war against Satan. For, in addition to defending the honor of their motherland, these solders have always stood for truth and justice, peace and harmony.

Grieve not, therefore, for the brave Indians who have laid down their lives in Kargil, Drass or Batalik. They have bid us the final farewell as they have been commissioned by God to fight a bigger battle. Victory will be decidedly theirs because they are on the side of truth which is God.

Courtesy on the Road

Pawan Verma

From the quizzical look I received from the girl, I was pretty sure that she had got my signals entirely wrong. Driving through the thick of traffic on the Delhi University campus one fine afternoon, as I found the car coming from the opposite direction, stuck up in the middle of the road, I had slowed down and given it a headlight signal – which meant, please cross over.

But it left the young lady driving the vehicle entirely confused. As I moved past after waiting for a few moments, her angry looks made it clear that the damsel in distress was indeed a damsel in distrust.

Unable to decipher the road signal right, she had doubted my intensions to flash the lights on her. But for my wife Neelima sitting by my side, the lady could have charged me with teasing.

The incident reminded me of a similar experience while driving through the streets of Patna. Being an avid supporter of good road sense, I had stopped my car to allow half a dozen school kids, on their way to school, to cross the road. While I fondly remember the gleam in their eyes on this gesture, I still cannot forget the massive protest honking from behind, which my humane gesture had aroused.

Truly, in a society unused to the finer aspects of driving etiquettes, such consternations are quite understandable. The reverse of it is equally true. I very vividly remember, when during my stay at Mauritius, one particular morning, while driving the car as I blew the horn asking for passage, I was dismayed to find that I had created a minor commotion on the road.

Very soon I was to learn that signaling through the headlight was the more acceptable method on the island roads. The lovely little Mauritius, where I spent nearly four years of my life is often referred to as “Little India”. But the big brother India has quite a few things to learn from its younger sibling, particularly in areas like traffic management, attitudes to life and driving etiquettes.

In the background of my experiences in India, it was so refreshing to find even Cabinet Ministers there, driving around without any security and without causing any dislocation of public traffic. One day when we had invited the Finance Minister, Mr. Lutchmeenaraidoo for a dinner with our top marketing professionals, he surprised us by his simplicity.

As he got down from the car along with his beautiful American wife, he took out a Rs. 200 note from his wallet and gave it to his driver to have buffet dinner, arranged elsewhere in the hotel. While going back he asked the driver to take the rear seat and drove off with his wife by his side.

Similar sportiveness is also reflected in the driving etiquettes in which even the VIPs excel. It is quite common to find someone driving in top gear, slow down and beckon a vehicle on the side road to join the mainstream.

I was once pleasantly surprised to receive such a gesture from no less a person than the Prime Minister Aneerood Jugnauth, whose BMW slowed down to allow me join the main road, leaving in the process his two pilot motorcycles in a bit of momentary confusion.

It is true, in life we tend to give to people what we receive from others. A gesture of grace and courtesy can generate ripples of happiness among others which could multiply and come back to us in some form or the other, sooner or later.

Playing the Game

Pawan Verma

The atmosphere in the room was tense. The minister for sports and youth affairs was in her chair looking pensively at the wall. No, she was not brooding over the rumors surrounding her. Whosoever is in the change of youth is bound to have affairs, she had earlier argued to herself sportingly. Today she had a different agenda. Peeved at the dismal performance of the Indian cricket team in Sri Lanka, she had summoned the chairman and secretary of BCCI for a hard talk.

Minister: I regret to tell you that I am thoroughly disappointed with the performance of the Board. Apart from playing politics, all of you must play some cricket also.

Jaywant Lele: Take it easy, madam. As you try to bring politics in sports, we bring sports in to politics. We are working for common ends.

Minister: Listen gentlemen, I am talking about performance. For all the fortune spent on tours and entertainment, you have not been able to develop a good cricket team. Tell me, why your boys start choking when the time comes to perform. Where are the bottlenecks?

JL: Madam, in most bottles, the neck is at the top.

Minister: You don’t get me. I mean, you haven’t been able to develop a team capable of consistent performance on the field.

A C Muthiah: I can accept any charge except this one. Look at our team’s performance. We have been quite consistent in losing matches. We have been losing them under different captains and coaches. Can you beat it? We go to eight consecutive finals over four years and consistently develop cold feet and weak knees out in the field. The problem is not with our cricket, it is with our knees.

Minister (Musing to herself: The fellow does make sense. The knee problem did surface even during Pervez Musharraf’s visit. Our media developed weak knees before the General). And then says: Knee, knee, I mean, no, no, our players need to develop some team spirit…

J L: Team spirit? I bet, you and me can take a lesson or two from them in this respect. Look at the way they sink or swim together. If one batsman succeeds all others succeed. If one fails, all the rest follow him to the pavilion in quick succession. Win or lose, they all stand united.

Minister: But you must do something to lift their individual spirits…

J L: Madam, You only need to see our players the night before a match. They are all in high spirits. So much so that they all become spiritual on the match day --- just do your duty and leave the results on God.

Minister: That’s it. Keep it up. Further, as minister for sports. I would like to make two suggestions for improving the team’s performance. First, give the boys a regular does of saffron particularly when they are playing in the neighborhood. It will give them strength and stamina to fight weak knees. Secondly, advise the captain to challenge the umpires more often. When the captain gets fired, his boys get fired up and win the match. Thank you, and best of luck.

(First Published in the Times of India, Edit Page, dated Jan, 12, 2002. It was written when Ms. Uma Bharati happened to be the Minister for Sports & Youth Affairs)

Tax Indiana

Pawan Verma


DEAR Finance Minister,

OUR democratic nation’s greatest virtue is that every little boy, no matter how humble his circumstances, can rise in life to become a taxpayer. It is admirable that you recognize this potential, while presenting the Union Budget; and assure citizens that of their earnings during the year, a small portion belongs entirely to them. We are grateful to you, Sir, that in keeping with this noble tradition, this reassurance has been provided to us this year also.

It goes without saying that for the great majority of us, who remain too busy with our mundane work to contribute anything to the nation, taxation provides the ideal opportunity to do something patriotic. It gives us a chance to work and earn for the government without passing the civil services exam. It also serves the cause of social justice as it enables those who work, to pay those who don’t; and those who earn, to pay for those who can’t. In fact, other than death if there is any leveler, it is taxation alone, the only difference being that death does not kill in installments and it does not become worse every time parliament meets.

Of course, there are a few amongst us who like the Americans, resent paying high taxes. As you know, for an American, even the three stripes in their national flag – red, white and blue – have connections with their taxes. They get red when they think about them; white, when they get the bills; and blue, when they fill in the returns. And they see stars when they pay their taxes. Nearer home, in our national flag, saffron teaches us renunciation of all our wealth and possessions; white encourages us to lead a simple life; and green symbolizes our happiness as something is left to us after paying taxes. The only difference is that instead of seeing stars, our head spins like the chakra after paying tax.

But, I can assure you Sir, that this apathy to taxation is true of only a small minority. The majority of us take pride in paying high taxes. So, irrespective of what others might say, I hereby offer a few suggestions to improve our taxation system.

First, every family should be encouraged to have at least three children. On growing up, while the two would pay the taxes, the third could support the family.

Secondly, although you have so generously ensured that our entire gamut of life is adequately covered by taxation, one important area, inadvertently left untaxed so far, needs your urgent attention. Hence, I recommended the introduction of a new tax, namely the Valentine Tax, whereby every married couple, who make love to each other, should be taxed. I am certainly not advocating a case for taxmen prying into our bedrooms. I have a more foolproof system. The couple should be taxed every time they are blessed with a child.

I assure you, dear Finance Minister, no man worth his salt, will evade paying taxes on the pretext that it was not his doing.

(First Published in The Times of India, Edit Page, dated 23.03.2000)

In the Land of the Rising Sun

Pawan Verma

There was a time in the history of Asia, when, even though the Sun rose in the East, the light came from the South. The light that enriched the souls of millions of Indians since the 6th century BC, travelled from the South of Asia along the Silk route via China and Korea to the land of the rising Sun, during the Nara period (710-794) and illuminated the hearts and minds of the people in Japan with Gautam Buddha’s preaching of Non-violence and Nirvana. Today, while the Sun continues to rise in the East, the light also comes from the East only. The modern concepts of Quality, Innovation, Just-in-time, Kaizen, are all coming from the land of the rising Sun and enriching lives in India and across the globe.

I could not help reflecting upon the long historical and cultural relationships between the two great civilizations during my recent visit to Japan. The occasion was the Board meeting of our Company in Tokyo which led our Board members and senior Company officials to visit the Head Quarters of one of our promoters, the 110 year old Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co. of Japan.

A first look at the city of Tokyo is mesmerizing. Not the tall buildings and the aesthetic structures alone, but the cleanliness, the public discipline and the punctuality that pervades the entire spectrum of public life. You may try, but will not be able to find a trace of dust on a car or even on the roads. Buildings look as if they had been painted just yesterday. Taxi drivers may not know English, but they are invariably courteous and helpful.

Back to the Dai-ichi’s Head Quarters, what strikes most is the sense of discipline and the respect for time that has become part of the cultural ethos of the entire nation. Our morning meeting with the President of Dai-ichi Life takes place in the majestic conference hall overlooking the Royal Palace. The 20-minute meeting starts just in time and in spite of all the exchange of pleasantries and the business discussions; it is made sure that it ends well in time. Each event whether an official meeting or a lunch or a sight-seeing programme, is immaculately planned and skillfully executed. Quite refreshingly, the whole approach is more functional than ornamental and it runs across the entire organizational hierarchy. The icing on the cake is the superb hospitality and the high degree of modesty and humility that is characteristic of the nation and all its people.

The entire experience generates a feeling of happiness as well as a sense of loss. Happiness on seeing a nation limited by land mass and lack of natural resources, getting over its limitations and rising to the pinnacle of glory by sheer discipline, dedication and commitment of its people. A sense of loss on our own unrealized potential. Our professional interactions only reinforce the fact that we Indians match up to the best in the world in our professional knowledge and expertise. The variety of our professional exposure and our expertise in creating order out of chaos, can be a matter of other’s envy and our own pride. We can be as proud of our grass-root innovations called Jugaad as the Japanese are of their concept of continuous process improvement called Kaizen. If only we had the discipline, dedication and commitment of the Japanese society, we would have been leading the world today.

Finally, from the land of the rising sun, we are back to the land of the rising sons. My normal routine does try to overpower me. But there remains a strong urge to learn from the experience and exposure and bring about the much needed change in myself as well as in our environment to realize our full potential as a company as well as a nation. No doubt, the journey to a thousand mile starts with the first step. I have taken the first step. Are you coming along?

It is Official

Pawan Verma

MODERN TIMES are indeed complex. People who spend hours looking for work spend hours looking at it, once they get the job. In some cases this infatuation is so strong that the thin line dividing home and office, work and leisure is completely blurred. It was just the other day that my neighbor, a government employee, was sitting at the breakfast table, engrossed in the morning newspaper. As he asked for yet another cup of coffee, his wife shouted back, “what’s wrong with you? Look at the time. Are you not going to office today?” “Office?”, said my startled neighbor, “I thought I was in the office itself.”

A study of both the government sector and the public sector management would reveal one common inadequacy – they do not recognize talent. In both these sectors there are umpteen number of people whose talents are so rich and diverse that it makes them consider their routine jobs dull and drab and look for alternative channels of creativity. This realization dawned upon me a few years ago when I was interviewing some of our employees for promotion. When I asked one young girl if she had any exceptional talents, she was quite forthcoming in mentioning her achievements in solving crossword puzzles and slogan-writing contests. I interrupted her to say that I was talking about something which could be done during office hours. She was vehemently reassuring, “Believe me, sir, it was all during office hours only.”

And then there are people who claim to work for those who work for their institution. They are the conscience-keepers of the institution. They would not mind exploiting the management in order to prevent the management from exploiting them. If in their busy schedule, they forget to avail of even small work-breaks, it is because of their inherent belief that work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do. The entire Indian working class owes its gratitude to them for the pioneering idea that pension could start even before retirement.

The greatest invention of today is – tomorrow. I am sure it must have been done either by a government official, or a public sector executive. For them one tomorrow is worth many todays. They would do anything to avoid thinking and expect you to do so as well. Consider, for example, the question on a job application form of a government office: “Have you or any of your relatives ever committed suicide?” But what is important is that they are happy within the empire built by them. As somebody who hopped over from the private business to a police job, remarked, “The hours are satisfactory, the pay is good and best of all, the customer is always wrong.”

Every new day brings home to me the realization that my education of the government and public sector is incomplete. Their agenda is still unfinished as I discovered while talking to a friend who works for a government software project. With vision in his eyes and jingle in his voice, he said to me, “We have developed a computer that’s almost human.” “You mean it can think like humans,” I said. “No” was his reply, “but when it makes a mistake, it can put the blame on another computer.”

(First Published in The Hindustan Times, Edit page, dated 14.12.1999)