FB - A Prayer

#MarcZuckerberg in Palo Alto,
Hallowed be thy FB
May new versions come
On Google Play as on App Store
Make our daily posts widely liked
Enhance our photos and videos
And spare us the malignant posts
Even as we appreciate posts from our friends.
Amen!

Not Enough Work!

A friend and colleague is embarking upon authoring a book and has requested for anecdotes.  This one is for him.  Though, this is not to say that others will not find it interesting.

This relates to the period when I was working at the Corporate Office (CO) of the Bank with which my colleague and I spent a whole working life.  The Chairman & Managing Director (CMD), very fond of long hours of work like our present PM, used to have morning meetings with top executives.  Though I was only an AGM, I was sometimes invited to this meeting.

One of the General Managers at the CO who was a workaholic like most others and known for working till very late hours, had suffered a stroke and passed away.  In a morning meeting following this unfortunate event, the CMD advised everyone to take good care of their health.  He also expressed surprise that there were few regulars at the well appointed office gym which also had regular trainers.  One of the GMs said, "Sir, you know all of us reach office a little early in the morning after a commute of an hour or two and then we are seldom able to call it a day before 7:30 in the evening.  That leaves us little time for our families, leave alone the gym!"  The CMD gave this GM a long and pensive look and exclaimed, "Oh! So you are complaining, aren't you?"  The poor chap protested vigorously and said that he was merely stating a fact.  The CMD said, "OK.  Henceforth if I summon anyone of you after 7 pm and you are not in your seat, it would be quite okay."

As working till 7 or 7:30 was the norm, I had kept my schedule like this.  I would leave my seat between 6 and 6:15, go to the gym, have a good workout and then return to my seat to see if any papers requiring my attention had arrived.  If there was nothing urgent, I would pick up my briefcase and leave.  The GM to who I was reporting too used to visit the gym frequently at around the same time.

Our visits to the gym had not gone unnoticed.  A participant in the meeting, a GM, remarked that GM and AGM in the IT department were very regular users of the gym.  As we were awaiting the reaction from the CMD, another participant remarked, "May be they don't have enough work in the department!"

Resigned from AAP membership

Resignation
Anil Upadhyaya <anil.upadhyaya@gmail.com>
Fri 8 May, 2015 at 15:04

To: Aam Aadmi Party <contact@aamaadmiparty.org>

Dear Sir,

I had become a member of AAP quite some time back and stood by you through the thick and thin in your apparent struggle against corruption. I now stand disillusioned.

I think that AAP was only interested in exploiting public frustration with the political system for the sole purpose of gatecrashing into the same corrupt and disgusting system. You have succeeded. Congratulations!

I feel sad that I, like many others, was tricked into assisting you in this unfortunate endeavor in my own little way. As an atonement I hereby resign from the membership of AAP.

Please acknowledge.

Regards,

Anil Kumar Upadhyaya
18/428 Indira Nagar,
Lucknow - 226016.
Mobile: +91 962 152 6956

A Translation

Translation of a sher which, I am sure, is wrongly attributed to Ghalib.

There is no dearth of idiots, o Ghalib,
they are all around you, o idiophile,
You look for them on the sidewalks,
only to find them riding in style.
You don't have enough to buy their services,
it is available on credit, so smile.

Those who know the original in Hindi will naturally enjoy it more.  It goes like this -

चू..यों की कमी नहीं है ग़ालिब
एक ढूंढो हज़ार मिलते हैं
पैदल ढूंढो सवार मिलते हैं
नकद ढूंढो उधार मिलते हैं।

😂😂😂😂

Tectonics of Terra Firma

We are the life forms with highest maintenance requirements.  We need governments, schools, factories, banks, electricity, networks, vehicles, fuel and what have you.  And above all we need a home with its numerous furnishings and fittings to meet our persistent daily maintenance requirements many of which also require privacy.  I am not aware if any other animal needs such paraphernalia.

And so we build our houses, perhaps the most expensive of our possessions, on terra firma.  It is a bit surprising that in this ever changing world where nothing stays still, we take the terra firma as firm, still and stable enough to place our most important asset on it.  Thankfully it stays that way at many places and for relatively long times.  But when it gets shifty, it brings down our abodes like a house of cards!  The plight of being without a house and all the amenities that it provides must be no less terrible than getting trapped inside a fallen one.

One silver lining in this cloud of calamity is that such unfortunate incidents also bring out the best amongst fellow human beings whom we often see as guided by greed and selfishness alone in normal times.

It also brings out the need for governments to enforce bylaws for compulsorily making buildings earthquake proof in higher seismic risk zones to the extent that the current technology is capable of.  Given the nexus between builders and politicians this may prove to be more difficult to achieve than providing relief to the unfortunate and hapless victims.

For luckier people who escaped the brunt of the quake - and I am one - the tremors have served as an urgent reminder to renew our house insurance and ensure that the policy doesn't consider earthquake as an act of God which cannot be insured against (as in OMG!)

Proposed & To-Be-Quashed Intrusive Tax Returns and BTT

When I was working, my employer, a public sector bank, had asked all employees to open one more Savings account in addition to the primary account in which the salary was credited.  The idea was to credit all reimbursements, exempt from tax, to this second account.  Why?  So that the taxman is spared the trouble (or sadistic pleasure?) of asking, and the taxpayer the onus of explaining, the nature of reimbursement credits.  The primary account is picture and law perfect and the secondary account need not be mentioned in the return which has a field only for the primary account.

This acknowledges the universal truth that taxmen, generally armed with excessive powers, are exceedingly difficult people to deal with.  It is more so in the case of tax payers at the lower end, namely, the salaried class.  And hence anything that adds teeth to the taxman's bite is sure to get the goat of the tax paying and form-filling public, especially the salaried class.

The proposed revised return forms - I call them the 'Kathin' forms - also acknowledge a chink in the Aadhaar and PAN fortified armor of the tax collectors.  Now all accounts compulsorily have PAN numbers, or a declaration in lieu thereof.  And hence it should not be difficult for the government in this brave new world of big data to find out all the accounts of an individual in the whole of the banking system if they need to.  That they plan to ask the taxpayer to disclose the information only acknowledges their inability to do so.  Or, it could be just plain sinister.  Yes, I can find it out but I will do so only when you omit to mention your account.  It is the classical game of NIGYYSOB (Now I Got You, You Son Of a Bitch!)  First you frighten a (weak) taxpayer into non-disclosure and then pounce upon him!  I would like to think that this is what all the public outrage is about.

And all the dust that the Finance Minister has raised with his proposals brings the question back with a bang - 'Why are you not even discussing Banking Transaction Tax?'  This will do away with the guilt of tax evasion, the huge army of tax collectors, a vast array of acts and rates that you have to fiddle with in each budget etcetera, etcetera.  Is it because it will also call for minimizing the use of currency in big ticket transactions and that is something that the corrupt and the powerful cannot do without.  Perhaps that is the crux of the matter.

Why has Baba Ramdeo gone silent on his strident demand for BTT?  Why has the BJP totally forgotten its earlier promises to reduce the iniquitous burden of direct taxes on the salaried class? One would think that our Finance Minister not only wants the middle class to look after itself it also wants this class to have its hands full of things to watch out for and defend itself against?  The PM, of course, is silent on this issue as on other thorny ones.

My First Glimpse Through Progressive Lenses

I have been myopic since childhood.  The power gradually increased to -6 diopters before it stabilized.  Now I am 65 and it has for some reason decreased by about 1diopter.  I needed bifocals when I was close to 50.  As I was a desk worker, I used to wear what they call executive bifocals.  These lenses are divided into two distinct parts across the middle - upper half for distance vision and the lower half for near vision.  Kids would often ask why was I wearing glasses that had a crack!  Working on a computer was a challenge with this pair.  It would lead to a pain in the neck if you looked at the monitor through the lower half.

So I had a pair of monofocals made for 'intermediate' vision with a power lying between the two in the bifocals.  Often I would make do with the monofocals throughout the day and reach for the bifocals only when going out for a walk or a drive.  The monofocals would make do even for driving and walking during bright daylight.

The last time I had my glasses made the optician advised that instead of carrying two pairs, I should go for the progressive lenses which would serve for all three purposes, namely, distance, near and intermediate vision.  However my search on the internet brought out that progressive lenses have zones which make peripheral vision distorted.  It said that many professionals, particularly pilots, often reverted to bifocals because of this problem.  So I ignored the advice.

Then as luck would have it, I lost my intermediate vision glasses during a trip to Delhi.  I put my apprehensions aside and visited my optician for making me a pair of progressive glasses.  When I wore the glasses for the first time I experienced and realized what was meant by the blurry zones of intermediate vision.  I chose to wear my bifocals for driving back home.

As recommended by the optician I kept on wearing the progressive lenses throughout the day.  After a week I feel I am quite accustomed to it now and here are my findings.  The glasses work quite well outdoors when it is bright and sunny.  However when it is not so bright or you are indoors with subdued lighting, the distortions get amplified.  The peripheral distortion zones do leave two narrow strips, one at the top and one at the bottom, free of distortion.  So when you are looking at a distant object through the top narrow strip or looking at a book through the bottom narrow strip there is little problem.  For intermediate vision, which mostly means working on a computer, you must train yourself to look through the narrow vertical strips towards the nose on either side.  Distortions arise if you are not looking straight at the screen.  If your head is tilted even a little on one side, one eye starts looking through the blur zone and discomfort starts.

Another problem is watching TV while reclining on your bed.  In a reclining position you have to look through the lower part of the two lenses which are meant for reading.  So you have to sit up a bit and / or tilt your neck a little forward so that you look through the upper part.

Yet, it offers a huge advantage of not having to switch your spectacles.  I do hope that my eyes will acquire the discipline of looking through the correct zone and the visual cortex will learn not to mind the distortions when the eyes err!

Before I close, I must add that the distortions that we talked about are much more severe than the normal distortions at the periphery in monofocal lenses.