003 No one can be taken for granted....

Dear Reader!

Our life itself being the best teacher, the day-to-day happenings are aplenty for all of us as learning points!

As one brought up under our late Father's controlled and disciplined domestic atmosphere, I have never taken anyone for granted. However, the very many experiences I have encountered and still continue to experience volunteer themselves as the topic for the day!

Thanks to Alexander Graham Bell, remote communication across the globe is so amazing now, mobile phones of different varieties have become the 'hot buys' everywhere.At the same time, pitiably, people who yearn to possess the latest model of the most sought after brands fail to understand their timely uses.

A busy home office atmosphere on a Monday;hardly 10 minutes left for me to finalize the draft of the business quote sent by my associate to me and the final quote should be on the table of our client in the following 30 minutes, otherwise we would miss the most lucrative business opportunity. I just didn't have time even to take the cup of tea cooling off fast in my A/C room.

A knock on my office room door, obviously by my perturbed wife. Jutting her head into the room she uttered mildly with lot of reservation, " Mr.N to see you! Don't get worked up. He has come to see you all the way.Come for a moment,please"

Grinding my teeth, I moved out of my room and went to the hall where Mr. N was sitting.

'Hello Mr. N! You wanted to surprise us? (meaning, "how the hell you chose to call on us without any prior intimation?")

"No VKN, I just came to meet the prospective buyer of old flat here. When I was about to return home, you came to my mind ("my bad luck", my inner voice lamented!) and I have just come to spend some time ("Oh! My God! I am finished! 'Sometime' in his language means an hour at least" again my voice warned of the danger looming large)

After spending few seconds on how to get rid of him, I reacted belatedly, "Had you called me in advance, I would have suggested a more suitable time so that I could spend more time with you comfortably."

My message couldn't have been clearer.Any sensible person would have noticed my discomfort in being with him but that was not to be in his case.

Just for courtesy's sake I made some formal enquiry about his family, office etc with my mind wholly on the job I was half way through.

The visitor slowly started his conversation with his focus on the ruling Government ("as if the ruling party could be changed overnight by means of our discussion!" I held my hands together tightly clasped to contain my irritation)

"Mr. N. You should remember one thing, you and I can just do nothing about it, talking about politics is a sheer waste of time.We should try to see what best we can do to the society individually" I expressed my irritation to him euphemistically.

Feeling that that message would be too inadequate to displace him from where he was seated, I continued, " Mr.N. With all your decades of experience in the service industry, in your present retired life, why don't you think of doing some free service in some hospital in your area. I am sure, at the end of the day, you will have lot more satisfaction that you have done something useful." (What I meant was that such a service would be a better option than wasting everyone's time around)

I have seen one thing from my personal experience; when you go on an offensive approach, especially pointing out another person's failures and lapses, it really unnerves the person to such an extent that he/she becomes totally disinclined to converse further and wriggles out of the embarrassing situation by fleeing from the scene.

Thank God! It worked in this instant case. He stood up in a move to take leave and that was exactly what I was wanting to happen. However, in order not to leave any bitterness in his mind about his visit,patting him on his shoulder, i just made a theatrical statement, " I wish I had spent more time with you but please, next time you think of visiting me, enable me to be in preparedness by calling me in advance. I hope you have my mobile number with you already. I am sorry, I have to rush an important mail."

Thank God! I still had some time left to complete and send my urgent mail!

Though it appears to be a business-like personal relationships in the Western World, I quite appreciate the basic customs and etiquette that stress on the basic requirement of fixing up an appointment even for personal visits - after all, every person is entitled to his/her time and no one can claim any rightful share of it.

As for me, without ascertaining the availability and convenience of the person to be visited, I never make any 'surprise visits'.

Another point about which I am equally careful is in the matter of phoning someone: in all my relationships, I study the individuals so much that I get to know their usual day-to-day habits and routines and never embarrass them at inconvenient hours. When I want to call Mr.X,I make sure that he may not be getting ready for his evening walk or may not be hurrying up with his dinner for his favorite TV show.

I know for sure that if i fail to do that, the reaction of the person called would be wilder than mine with Mr.N, the casual visitor!!

My rules are very much the same whether I meet a person while on the road or whether I see one of my contacts in online chat communication channels.

After all, years of experience in watching human behavior would quite reveal to anyone when he/she meets another person on the road whether that person is in a relaxed mood or hurrying up with his agenda. It is just common sense. I always let the other person show interest in a chat with me, I never volunteer even when I find the person totally relaxed.

Here again, I am enforcing this self imposed rule all the more vigorously because of a most annoying situation which I faced few years ago.

This happened one sunny afternoon when I was hurrying up to my bank for an urgent cash withdrawal (I never use ATMs!). On the way I happened to see an occasional contact and true to my nature I took notice of him (that was the serious mistake I committed on that day which I would regret for ever!) thinking that he would just wish me and let me go ahead.

Unfortunately not!

He caught hold of me (figuratively, of course) and started straightaway rambling about his U S trip. Trust me, the harangue (centering around the unorganized living conditions and living style in India as compared to the U S) went on for nearly 45 minutes despite my showing him my lack of interest on the subject using all kinds of body language known to me.

Disgusting it was, I lost not only my time but missed the banking hours also.

That was my last meeting with that gentleman (!!). Couple of times I saw him later from a distance.Needless to mention I successfully avoided seeing him face to face on all those occasions!!

In the same way, whenever I see the presence of my contact/s in the chat media, I never have the urge to engage myself in chat with the person/s. I always believe that the other person should be as busy as I am. If at all any necessity arises to chat, the standard phraseology with which I invite him is: "How busy are you? Can you spend few minutes on chat? "(few minutes really mean few minutes, may get extended at the other person's will, not mine anyway)

My philosophy is that when one respects the other person's time, he/she is bound to reciprocate such an attitude. I also believe that a man(woman included!) learns more from life than from books.

And this is the learning point I have which I wanted to share, not certainly my experiences!


Bye for now,

V K Naageswaran (vknwaran@bsnl.in)