Who's on top?

Being on top - or who has the upper hand - or who is in an advantageous position is something that most if not all of us constantly dwell upon. Be it politics, sports, workplace, home, or any place that has a possibility for one-upmanship. It is an inherent animal instinct that resides within all of us consciously or subconsciously. It’s beyond just survival of the fittest to the extreme of being rearing of the unfit for self gratification if I can put it in that way.

Look around you, you try and put someone down who is going to become your equal, you take undue advantage of someone’s financial/professional/emotional position to indulge in self proclaimed superiority. Of course in this great ecosystem you may not be at the top because you also are prey to someone else’s self proclaimed superiority.

So what do you do? Bide your time mostly so that you grow in superiority and move higher up in the superiority ecosystem. Maybe you’ll have more people now to take advantage off and show them who’s on top, and lesser people who you will bend down to accept your inferiority. And this up-down behavior we will do all our lives till the time we die and yet hope in spite of all our frailties that we reach the top.

Hey! I have an idea...

Victor Hugo, famed author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, once said “There is but one thing stronger than all the armies in the world… and that is an idea whose time has come.” A cutout of this quote lies there on my soft board in office and I keep looking at it sometimes intentionally, mostly it stares at me in the face without reason. Alongside it is another quote by novelist Oliver Wendell Holmes "Man's mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions". These quote cutouts were something an old friend and colleague had given me while moving on to newer pastures professionally.

For the last ten years I have been grappling with getting that idea that is stronger than all the armies in the world and one which can change the dimensions of my mind. I’m sure you would have gauged by now that I do not have it as yet – else you would be reading about me and my work elsewhere not on this self promoting blog. That apart the quest and motivation to seek can never end. Maybe my time has not come to get that idea. Maybe I’m not looking for it in the right place. Maybe I’m very ambitious and am looking for a big idea. Maybe I'll someday say what the title of the blog says. Just for a second, maybe I’m searching for the wrong idea.

Look how they're talking

Recently I was watching the Asian Paints advertisement on TV for the umpteenth time, and what struck me was this young girl using the words "cutting shutting". Now to put this in context 'cutting' was the action that the young boy was doing in the ad, not shutting. But this has now become part of out parlance especially when we speak in Hinglish (the amalgamation of Hindi and English).

If you consider this the first word has context to the discussion whereas the next word that gets suffixed to it is just another rhyming word or maybe just another rhyming sound that is of no consequence to the discussion but just a filler. Maybe it is for more impact to the conversation. Sample this "Kuch fight wight hai kya" another usage that had wight which doesn't mean anything.

I'm sure we have lots of these "twin words" that we use so often in conjuction without realising in our day to day speech. Where are we going with this usage beats me! But right now kuch writing wyting karte hai.