Some things never change

Cicero (43 B.C) of the Roman empire wrote this. 
Do people and things ever change?

1. The poor, work and work.

2. The rich, exploit the poor. 

3. The soldier, protects both.

4. The taxpayer, pays for all the three.

5. The wanderer, rests for all the four.

6. The drunk, drinks for all the five.

7. The banker, robs all the six.

8. The lawyer, misleads all the seven. 

9. The tax collector, kills all the eight.

10. The undertaker, buries all the nine.

11. The Politician and Prostitute live happily on account of all the ten.

When society is doomed.

When you know that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; 


When you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods but in favours; 


when you see that men get rich more easily by graft rather than by work, 


and your laws no longer protect you against them but protect them against you

......  you know that your society is doomed 

                                      - Ayn Rand ( Author - Atlas Shrugged)

Foot in Mouth Disease?

My friend Seema calls me an expert. My chest always puffed up with pride, until one day she shared with me her definition of an 'expert'.
An expert is someone who is never in doubt but frequently in error!!

I realised a little late in the day that she was merely being polite for an ailment which can be labelled as 'foot in mouth' disease.

Upon this great realisation, I was curious to determine if I belonged to a small group or a larger community that had been afflicted with this malady. I am glad to inform you that this problem is quite common but lays dormant until triggered by any of the following phenomena;

A powerful trigger for turning into an expert is to get elected to office. Does not matter which office, any office will do. Even getting elected to the management committee of a housing society or your local club will bestow upon you the crown of all knowledge.

Some acquire money, some are born with it, and some have it thrust upon them. Wealth thrusts people into the world of experts. It does not matter whether it was plundered , earned, or acquired in the old fashioned way, that is to inherit it, the person is instantly transformed into an expert.

The third way to become an expert is to become the boss of some poor creatures at work. The boss knows everything.

The fastest and most certain way to gain expertise is of course to get married. You will immediately acquire an expert. Whether this makes your life better is questionable, but it will certainly make it interesting, at least for a while.

Last but no less powerful and all pervasive mother of all expert sources is to become a parent. No one knows better than a parent. As the quote goes "You may fool some people all the time, you may fool all the people some of the time but you can never fool Mom." Parents apparently wear the crown of all knowledge.

Before you begin to feel sorry for all these different types of experts and the great burden they have to bear in the upliftment of mere mortals you may want to review the mumblings or should I say bumblings of some other great experts;

• We don't need you. You haven't got through college yet. -
  Hewlett Packard excuse to Steve Jobs, who founded Apple Computers instead.


• I think there's a world market for about maybe five computers. -
  Thomas J. Watson, chairman of the board of IBM


• Everything that can be invented has been invented.
  Charles H. Duell, Office of Patents, 1899


• 640K memory for a computer ought to be enough for anybody -
  Bill Gates, Microsoft, 1981


• There will never be a bigger plane built. - A Boeing Engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that carried ten people.


• Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. -
  Marechal Ferdinand, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.


• We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out. -
  Decca Executive, 1962, after turning down the Beatles


• There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. -
  Ken Olson, president of Digital Equipment Corp. 1977


• This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. - Western Union, memo, 1876


• No imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?
  David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urging investment in the radio in the 1920's


• Who wants to hear actors talk? -
  H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927


• While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility. -
  Lee DeForest, inventor


• Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.
  Lord Kelvin English scientist, 1899 ( William Thomson)

A Cup of Coffee

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor.

Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other's cups.

Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

Enjoy the quality of life which is the coffee. Don't let the cups drive you.

I wish to acknowledge with thanks the contribution of this article to my happy and successful friend  Anoop Desai.