The Price of Air

 

Photo not of the airline in the post

It’s not that I haven’t traveled by budget airlines before. I remember the good old days when we flew from Kuwait City to Bahrain many years ago. A new low-cost carrier had just launched, and — as unbelievable as it sounds — the taxi fare to the airport cost more than the air ticket itself.

But that was another time.

Recently, I booked a ticket with a well-known full-service carrier. For the first leg, I accepted a connection operated by their budget subsidiary. I felt rather pleased with myself — a comfortable trip, minimal layover, and the convenience of starting right after office hours. What could go wrong?

I didn’t expect the flight to be eventful — and thankfully, it wasn’t. But it was certainly entertaining in its own way. The in-flight announcements were where the real show began. It was almost like sitting in a marketplace, with hawkers enthusiastically pushing their merchandise.

They started innocently enough: an offer to upgrade to seats with extra legroom, followed by the familiar spiel about snacks and drinks for purchase. Fair enough — short flight, low expectations — although these were supposedly included, given that I’d booked with a full-service airline. I even declined my snack, generously giving the airline a chance to resell it at a premium.

Then came the twist. The crew cheerfully announced that, yes, the aircraft did have an onboard entertainment system. And yes, we could absolutely enjoy it — provided we were willing to rent a pair of headphones.

I sat back, amused. It wasn’t just the absence of a free service that caught my attention, but the brilliance of the commercial logic behind it. The infrastructure for entertainment was all there — screens, movies, the works — but the means to listen was an upcharge. A masterclass in microtransactions.
A reminder that when it comes to creativity — the sky is the limit, quite literally.

A few savvy passengers came prepared with their own headphones, outsmarting the system — or maybe they were frequent travelers. Meanwhile, the toilets weren’t exactly “pay and use” that day, but they remained mysteriously locked for most of the 50-minute flight, “due to takeoff and landing procedures.”

When we finally landed, I expected a smooth connection through an aerobridge. Instead, the announcement came: we’d be taking a bus to the terminal.

It was at that moment — waiting to disembark, clutching my carry-on — that a thought crossed my mind. Given the airline’s strict commercial ethos, I instinctively reached for my wallet. Just in case.

After all, having charged for the seat, the snacks, and the headphones, who’s to say they wouldn’t monetize the 15-minute bus ride?

It turns out the bus ride — like the toilet, and the life jacket, I suppose — was free of charge.

This time.

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🔗 Read Reflect Rejoice

🎾 Come On, Get Off My Back!

Leave me alone as I get along with the day!

Lately, I’m getting intimidated by the demanding and commanding nature of almost everything I use.

I agree, I asked for a wake-up call in the morning — but once I open my eyes and pat the screen, that task should be done. There’s no need to keep buzzing like a nagging child. That’s one time I feel like throwing the phone away, but even in half-sleep, the price tag flashes before my eyes.

Score: Love-All.

Next up, breakfast. I put my food in the microwave, and it insists I take it out immediately when it’s done. If I’m late, it starts protesting, beeping — just like the better half!

Love–15.

I get into the car. The moment I turn the key, it starts beeping for the seat belt. I politely say, “Thank you very much,” but it keeps raising its voice until I give in.

Love–30.

Like most men, I too suffer from the “I’ll find my way” syndrome — if there’s one by that name — and would rather circle the city than ask a stranger for directions. Yet, I have no qualms taking orders from Siri, Google, or Cortana. Trouble starts when I miss a turn and we both lose our cool, yelling at each other. Eventually, I surrender, follow her lead, and make it to the office — only to be scolded by the elevator lady: “Please press the button for your desired floor.”

Love–40.

At work, I log into my email. The server insists I change my password. I choose something simple, but no — it wants special characters, numerals, and uppercase letters. I twist my simple mind into a complex password I’ll soon forget. Then it demands my mobile number for “extra safety,” sends me a code, and makes me prove I’m not a robot.

Game Over.

Finally, I open my inbox.
As I start writing, my word processor joins the match. It constantly finds fault — grammar, spelling, even my choice of words. Now it wants me to write shorter and shorter sentences.

Being an introvert, I hardly speak in public; now my word processor seems determined to make me write less too.

I ignore it for the time being and override it.

The score stands: 15–Love.
Set 2: Game paused due to serious workload. 🎾 

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Read Reflect Rejoice

Window Shopping Online

Window shopping is one common colourful thread that ties human being across the cultures. The internet has made this pleasurable experience even more fun.

What is that one odd stuff that you looked up recently at the eBay or another online shopping portal? Something that you searched for, with absolutely no intention to make a purchase.

I request you to share your experience via a blogpost and let the fun flow though the blogosphere! If you decide to make the post then please link your post to this one.

The queerest thing that I had searched at the eBay store happens to my spookiest one too. I looked for a “haunted mirror”, not for buying though but to verify if such items were offered for sale.

One variety available are “black glass mirrors” that witches use for ritualistic spell or scrying. With the correct incantation these mirror would be the medium to connect with the dead or the Satan himself....at-least, so they claim!

I was looking for another variety of haunted mirrors which unfortunately nobody was selling on that particular day. Those are the mirrors that has association with spirits, mostly evil. We have heard of many peculiar experiences that people had while looking at the mirror.

A woman once gazed at one such mirror and saw her corpse. 
There was another mirror that freaked out a woman who stood in front. 
Believe it or not, her reflection would move despite her standing still. 
Many people has seen eyes in the mirror and those eyes didn’t belong to them. Sometimes the eyes look directly at the soul and sometimes it appears they cannot see. 
I once read of a woman who saw the face of an ugly old man staring back at her and was haunted for more than a year.

One theory is that something awful happened in front of the mirrors and the negative energy got absorbed in those mirrors. Some researchers think that the spirits try to torment people as causing distress releases emotional energies from us and they feed on this.

I am not sure, I would be willing to hang one of those in our bedroom!

Disclaimer – Any Similarity with People, Leaders, Politicians was intended

This post is about life of antelope in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, one of the sprawling grassy plains in Africa. Because of its seasonal flooding it remains a lush animal habitat for all types of living species. Notable heavyweights among the 160 species of mammals that thrive there are the likes of hippos, elephants, crocodiles, lions, leopards, rhinos, giraffes.

Also found there are Lechwe, a species of antelope family that stand 90 to 100 cm at the shoulder and weigh from 70 to 120 kg. They dominate the marshy areas feeding on aquatic plants while staying within knee-deep water to avoid the predators. With legs covered in a water-repellent substance, they have the perfect tools to run off any big cat in the knee deep water chase.

The males have long spiral structured horns they use it for fighting over territory and females. The sound of one horn hitting another sends clear message to the lions that another territorial fight is in progress and they are quick to cash in on this opportunity. The Lechwes are so engrossed in their fight that don’t realize that a predator has sneaked in and when they does, it’s too late.

Whenever we as human has taken our guard off because of our in-fighting, we too have paid for it dearly. It always pays to be careful and remain vigilant from predators, who sometimes hide behind a mask.

The post has been inspired by this picture posted by Natgeo on the Instagram.

The intemperate Bot

We had a holiday in Varanasi … Banaras during the first week of July 2017. It was an enjoyable family holiday as we saw one of the oldest cities in the world getting a face-lift. We stayed at the Taj, had some splendid boat rides on Ganges and got the opportunity to get connected to Samrat Ashoka the great via his Stambha (the lion pillar).

While we were planning the trip we had looked up on booking dot com among other websites for hotel accommodation.….. and now the intemperate bot that works for that website is psyching me out of my wits!

I am aware of the “Event based marketing” (also called trigger marketing and event initiated marketing) as a form of marketing that identifies key events in the customer and business life-cycle. When an event occurs a customer specific marketing activity is undertaken.

But I had the event took place in 2017 and two years on I still receiving last minute deals on a regular basis.

Leave me alone, Please!

Daymare? Nay! It’s a Dream

Your great grandchild will be surprised to know that you had physically transported yourself to tourist destinations. It will be shocking for them to accept the fact that people took such extraordinary efforts for mundane experience of a jungle safari or a walk on the Great Wall of China. An experience which could easily be enjoyed during a lunch break. If it is not yours, his grandchild will most certainly be looking at us as though we were the hunters’ gatherers of the twenty-first century.  

It’s not a daymare, it’s just a dream!

Virtual Reality is making inroads into the life of the proverbial common man at a speed much faster than what we would be comfortable to accept. Any major, important or popular tourist destination has already been digitized in their minutest of details. We can easily experience a fly over the highest peak of the largest mountain or inspect the intricate details of St Paul’s Cathedral leaning back on our desk chair. Today, it may analogous to gazing at the computer screen but I have a dream....  

Very soon VR technology to will evolve to a full-fledged Dolby digital like experience. As I write this post, google is busy documenting the street views of the major cities around the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if the forests and deserts are also being digitized by someone else.

The journey that one would embark in the near future would be as real as they comes, effectively encompassing all our senses but remaining within one's own comfort zone. Standing in front of the favorite monument one would be able to feel, smell and talk to the fellow virtual traveler admiring the same view in real-time, albeit virtually.

When that day dawns, the able, unable, disable and differently-able person alike shall experience the joy of visiting exotic locales. This is going to impact the life of all; the lazy, the crazy and everyone in between. The “selfie experience” will still remain quite intense while the “selfie camera” moves into the computer which will be shouldering all the hard-work. 

With that reality still lurking at a distance, my best selfie is yet to clicked. I do leave a virtual selfie. 

But till that time comes we have to drag our feet and physically send ourselves to places  armed with a good selfie camera. After all human beings' primitive instinct of showing off has to be addressed in style. The camera need to support different formats of all the social media options. Whether it is Facebook, Pinterest or the Instagram, the photos once posted need not get cropped. A phone with its dual selfie camera to capture a 120° wide-angle shot would definitely give you an edge over the commoners. 

This post remembers Morton L. Heilig, referred by many authors as the father of Virtual Reality. 

Agoraphobic any one

Napoleon had cautioned long ago that "Mankind's worst enemy is fear of work". But centuries have passed but the fear of work doesn't seems to go away.

One of my ex-colleague used to question "why we need to complete this today while we could do it tomorrow?" Another one's philosophy was to leave office early if you happen to reach for work late. "one should not be late twice in the same day" he used to advice.
But the winner is one who left office in the morning because his boss wished him "have a great day!" Obviously he had figured it out that he could not be in the office and have good time.

I looked high and low all these days to find a word that would describe this attitude towards work. On the 6th of March 2018, I got this word sent to me and I am glad to share with all who were not aware of it.

A Kleptoparasite

This week I got introduced to a new phrase. That is kleptoparasite. This was part of a scientific article that reported the discovery of a previously unknown species of beetle in the Costa Rican jungle. These are tiny creatures that hitchhiked the fighter ants while travelling frequently as part of moving their homes.

They are stowaways who hide themselves in the bottom of those ants so well that their body textures and odor mimics that of those ants. So much so, that the ants are unable to detect the intruders even while touching with their feelers.

There is a certain advantage when one travels with a large group of army ants. But protection or free rides are not the only objectives for these tiny parasites. These creatures also steal from the food stores of the ants.

While there are others small creatures that has similar stealing habits, I find these beetles particularly shameless. They exploit the ants to the maximum.

Ironically, there are so many human beings spread every geographical regions who adopted this modus operandi. They come in different shapes, sizes, color or creed but ride on the support and kindness of ordinary people. In return they steal from us to amass their own wealth. But unlike those ants they are extra greedy and do not hesitate to harm their benefactor.

Any similarities with people living and dead involved in the field of businesses or politics is not coincidental.

I rest my case here. 

Red Carpet: Why you need a face Lift

Glamour of The Red Carpet

We have grown up seeing red carpets rolled out for VIPs and celebrities at every occasions. But, is the Red carpet red enough or it’s time for a change? I went about digging its past to propose a new future.

The earliest known reference in literature according to Wikipedia is found in the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus, written in 458 BC. Clytemnestra, the vengeful wife of  Agamemnon offered a red path to walk upon his return from Troy. Agamemnon, was wary of disrespecting Zeus and his fellow deities by walking on such luxury and responded:

"I am a mortal, a man; I cannot trample upon these tinted splendors without fear thrown in my path."

In 1821, President James Monroe was honored in South Carolina with a red carpet laid out to the river. Red as a color has long been associated with prestige, royalty and aristocracy and royalty with the passage of time gave way to film royalty. Walking the red carpet became most glorified when the movie stars and singers started to walk on it during awards ceremonies, particularly Oscars, Academy and Grammy. Unfortunately much of its exclusivity and lustre has been lost since stars from mediocre television programs started their own versions for their fans and paparazzi.

But what made red so exclusive? BBC quoted Sonnet Stanfill, senior curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum told BBC saying “Scarlet was among the most prized dyes as it was the most difficult to make and the most expensive.” Cochineal dye is made from the cochineal scale insect and this process could be traced back to the 15th Century when the Aztec and Maya people from north and central America used this for coloring fabrics.

Gone are days when Queen Elizabeth could forbid anyone except close members of the royal family from wearing scarlet, red or purple. On the contrary, with industrial progress, expensive materials of yesterdays are affordable to everyone today leaving virtually nothing for exclusivity.

While I am convinced that something should replace the Red carpet, I still could not figure out what it ought to be.

Zero - When it becomes a Positive Review

Most of the time Zero is considered more negative than any negative integer and we seldom hesitate to say “he or she is a big zero”.

While the size of a zero definitely doesn’t matter, there are some excellent lessons one could take home from Zero.

We learnt that one can add colossal value in life by positioning oneself in the RIGHT place. When 0 (zero) collaborates with 1 (One) in the right position they make 10 (Ten).

Zero (0) degree, where the water starts to freeze, could give us immense warmth once arrived from a minus 10. We learnt that in spite of being the smallest, Zero does not carry any negativity.

Though careful usage Zero could be encouraging, as a manager once appraised someone. “He has improved tremendously” the manager wrote. “His English has now become zero from totally non-existent”.

How is my driving

I believe in parallel universe: Multiple versions of us are living in alternate worlds that interact with each other. Nah! I am not going to bore you with quantum theories to explain "multiverse". Rather, it’s quite simple for us to perceive.

One world exist in our home, offices, parks or movie theaters while other one could be viewed in its full glory on our roads. Once behind the wheels of those moving metals, each actor has a different character ever ready to clank at the slightest opportunity.

I once encountered a driver, who started his argument by accepting he was an idiot while questioning if I did enough to prove my genius. He must have been a lawyer of the Road world and the realization dawned on me that in this parallel world all professions exists.

The Professor: When they happen to observe someone break the law, they make every effort to let the errant know that it was wrong. Given an opportunity they give a lecture on it.

Makeup Artists: They consider cars as moving parlors with drivers’ seat their dressing couch. It’s brings in lot of convenience with many mirrors allowing them put everything from foundation or lipstick to nail paint. Usually they don’t mind a honk or two to remind them that the traffic lights have gone green.

Late Risers: To complement those who could not manage makeups before leaving are the ones who missed breakfast. They are expert in completing a full course breakfast with sandwich, coffee et al and all without losing control of the steering wheel.

The Correspondent: Always interested in what happened along the road, slowing down to stick the neck out of the windows if there is an accident or there is a gathering of any sorts More often than not they will try to put their camera on duty.

Peeping Toms: These Toms spares no effort to find out what’s going on inside the car next door.

The learner: Someone who will frustrate everyone with their cautious driving and worst part of their behavior is they slow down even if the traffic light is green.

The Manipulator: They are expert in manipulating the situation and finding a way to arrive at the frontend of long queues most of the time exploiting the kindness of others or flouting the rules.

Multitasker: One mother of Multitasker was a colleague of mine who could put all his limbs into action. A cigarette in one hand, a mobile on the other while one foot took charge of the steering wheel while the other worked on accelerator and brake. Beating all odds, he is still alive and kicking!

Which type of driver are you, I wonder....

Manhandling a Jacket, Allen Solly way

Update - Further to this post, Allen Solly did replace the jacket for me

Till this time “mishandling” and “yours truly” never featured in the same sentence. Last week an attempt has been made to tarnish the reputation built over years by representatives of Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, the company that owns the brand Allen Solly.  I have been accused of mishandling a jacket, for Christ’s sake! By this post I shall make others aware and caution others to be careful as this could happen to anyone. I could approach them as I purchased from a physical store in a high end mall, I shudder to imagine how desperate who purchases online would be.

We used to buy Allen Solly products as it is an Indian brand and in the same time lending support to the Make in India initiative in our own way. A premium brand is distinguishable by its willingness to accept its deficiencies and addressing those to ensure total value to their customer. Little did we know that Allen Solly in its dealing with us will demonstrate none of these characteristics while pretended to be one.

The shocker came in the form of my Allen Solly Jacket which I had worn sparingly for 3 odd months.  A casual jacket is seldom worn and more so when one resides in the Middle east where the opportunity to use worm clothes comes once in a blue moon.  After using it on a few occasions, I noticed the collar of the jacket having a defect of peeling.  Following winter, I took it back to the store in Kolkata. The staffs were visibly embarrassed and decided to send it to Bangalore for replacement, verbally assuring us that it was a manufacturing defect and the company would compensate.

A month later the store informed that the quality team has sent the jacket back and I received a letter stating that it was neither a defect of the fabric nor that of manufacturing. On a follow-up email they informed that based on comprehensive analysis by “Quality Care Cell” they concluded that the damage is noticed due to mishandling of the product. 

How does one mishandle the collar of a jacket that it starts peeling off?  Obviously, they did not accept the product is of substandard material and shied off from their responsibility of replacing the faulty product. At the very least they could have rendered an apology for selling substandard material to a customer in the garb of premier product.

I have made my decision not to purchase their products again and would caution people to learn from my experience and be prudent while making the next purchase decision. It’s another reminder for, “all that glitters are most certainly not gold”.

I am reproducing the mail that they had sent 

An ordinary man's Sunday chronicles

Herge

Sunday they say, has been derived from the Egyptian astrology as the might of the Sun was honoured by associating its name with the first day of a week. After its association with the resurrection of Christ, this day evolved as the day for rest, worship and socialising. 

It’s a fantastic idea to have rest on the first day of the week and then start work. Somewhere in the middle this idea went for a tailspin and Sunday ended up being the weekend. Luckily for us with more people, less work and even lesser natural resources, Saturday too joined as another day of rest... But who’s complaining!

Sunday, nevertheless has brought joy in my life since time immemorial. During my early days, I remember Sunday was fun as our parents did not have to go to work and we could spend time together.

Then came the school, teachers and homework. While I am yet to meet a student who doesn’t appreciate a Sunday, I was ready to trade in any thing for an extra Sunday. But not once, I was given that option. The principle of dealing with holiday then was basic but robust. Complete all school works as early as possible and unlock the pleasure time.

Then came the college days packaged with the hostel life and absolute self-dependence. The line between study and entertainment got increasingly blurred till it was totally invisible. That was not because study was entertaining but because with little or no supervision each day turned out to be a Sunday.

The reality check stepped in as we went out for professional training during our final year at the college. Working 8 hours for 5 days every week, we realized was not our cup of tea. We only could pull along since we knew those days were numbered and we had the weekends.

That stint in Delhi not only taught us how to talk Hindi but also introduced us to the real meaning of the phrase “Thank God It’s Friday”. The weekends were so amazing as compared to those work days that showed very little sign of ending made us wonder if all days counted up to 24 hours. 

The day to night and back to day transition during the weekends were seamless and joyful until we  found ourselves on the verge of tears on the Sunday evenings.

The acceptance of this torture after graduation came after lot of resistance taking long breaks from work between changing jobs. Slowly responsibilities increased and men are expected to act responsibly without taking breaks from jobs every now and then. Rolling stone gathers no moss and collecting moss soon become a requirement. At some stage of our life, the living like a king has to end.

Now as I maneuver through the midlife crisis, I am faced with the dilemma of choosing the appropriate of the two contradicting approaches to deal with my much coveted weekly holidays. Should I sleep late and laze around all day doing nothing serious because it’s my time or opt for the option to wake up early to do everything I so desperately want to do during the weekdays.

Which one I have selected, you might curiously wonder.

Well I am fortunate to be blessed with a third alternative. I have the luxury to let my daughter and wife to decide what I should I do or where should I take them on that particular day or any other holiday for that matter.

I know I am not the only one. I am sure someday others will join us …… Happy Holiday Buddies.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

excuse me.. No favoritism please!

I have a confession to make before I go any further. I am unable to select three favourite words. 

This is beside the point that I do not love favouritism as it amounts to giving preferential treatment to a person or group of people over other people or groups in the same unit and for that matter words. 

I do not believe it is right in favouring of one person or group over others with equal claims… I mean words.

Even if I had believed in favoritism, I never will succeed in selecting three favorites as I find love and hate so very contextual. I won’t even succeed to zero down the words I hate most if I leave the word ‘hate’ itself out of the equation.

Having confessed at the beginning, I now feel so much relieved as if a stone has been lifted from my chest. This is an awesome feeling! I love feeling awesome, that’s another confession.  

Since confessing made me feel awesome which is a feeling that I really love,  I may be right to presume that confessing could be a favorite. In this context awesome and love are two words that compliment confess to elevate me to this state of euphoria by which I actually mean an affective state of exaggerated well-being or elation.These triplet collectively does qualify to be favorite, technically if not otherwise.

There could be another set of words that I would have loved had the context been different. For example had I been on a holiday mode, I would have all my passions and energy going behind Airport, Hotel and Restaurants to get the amazing feelings all through the holidays.

However, the magic is all around when I am with my daughter. Magic is not only  associated with “once upon a time” that she loves to hear. Its also not limited to the “magic e” in spellings she find so very challenging to learn and would rather leave it to “fate”, which incidentally is an apt example of a word with magic “e”.

The real magic is in the three words that everyone knows from their childhood. Thank you, sorry and please. Only if all of us could use them without prejudice or inhibition, this world would have been so much better place to live. I will not try to reason why, as the guru already said “If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s cottages princes' palaces.”

There are men of words and then there are also words off men as the highlighted words of the following sentence. and that could . Will a maverick guy be lynched and end in mausoleum if he was a Casanova? That could also be a set of potential favourites as I have written once before five men of words.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

Honey, I won a million US$! - How would you react

“Honey, I won a million US$!” a very few will believe these when they hear something similar from their spouses. Even if someone does, it will be with so much of suspicion and scepticism.

Our household has two female of the species and each of them, I know will react in two diametrically opposite ways. My daughter who still believe in magic as well as miracles will congratulate me and probably request me to buy her a robotic puppy. She wanted to take one for a walk but we told her it was too expensive for a toy. The other woman will convince me this offer was from that distant land in Africa which had built up quite a reputation for itself by promising top dollars in lottery, inheritance or charity to anyone who was willing to bite the bait.

But if it is true and all mine, a million US $ in clean monies will make a huge impact on my life and for that matter anyone's life. A million US dollars is more money than it actually appears to be, it's six and half crores of Indian Rupees. I can argue that the pleasure is in earning and such easy money will definitely not make any self-respecting individual happy, blah, blah, blah.  I will then be naive... to say the least!

It will make a difference...

If you remember the salaries for fresh graduates from engineering colleges during the nineties in our national capital, you remember me. I know how is it not to have money in the bank when the bills start coming at the beginning of the months. All we could do was dream big.

I was not the only one in the league of daydreamers desperate to see even quarter of a million disposable rupees sitting in our accounts. An amount considered good enough to feel secured and content. It did not happen as quickly as I wished though it came earlier than dreaded. It brought in the independence and basic security to the life alibi after giving away 50 hours of each week for a paltry sum and slogging the butt out.

I soon realized how dynamic this world was and how fluid the targets could be. New targets progressively replaced the earlier ones and the transition was so seamless that even I was kept in the dark when my goal posts moved. Then came the realization that the journey is more important than the destination itself. There are many unfulfilled desires and there will be many more that will add up with the passage of time. Some of those, I know for sure will never see the tick on it's right side. Even if a million dollars come my way all of a sudden.

So how much good is that money for me!

I will not imply that a million dollars is no good for me or it cannot buy our desires. It's not just big deal, it's a massive deal. It’s true that I cannot buy me a personal jet or a celebrity mansion with a million dollar but I can easily retire in a decent bungalow by the sea with a shiny sports car in the garage along with a four wheel drive to keep it company. What remains can continue to work for me at various financial institutions to generate steady revenue and sponsor a well-balanced diet of tea, coffee and other liquids hailing from the Americas, France or the Scotland. 

That probably will be a fantastic lifestyle that allows for every luxury without the need for any work.  Eat drink and be merry with the hobbies and other passions close to the heart, as they would say! The million dollars question, however is would we be able to do so or find it too selfish a thought to have crossed my mind. I know the answer. 

We would be much more comfortable trying to make this money work for the needy, less fortunate and the ones in distress. Let's put together a non-profit organization to look after them and in the process generate a few employment opportunities as well. We are game to take up the challenge to make the million dollar work hard and work effectively to allow this machinery move on.

This I can say with conviction, will make the world a much happier place than having one Suman speeding away in his fast car flashing a Zenith, Piaget or for that matter a top of the range Rolex and leaving behind a whiff of Havana cigar mixed with his personalized designer perfume.

 This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.