WILD BRAINSTORMING

An old friend of mine converses with me frequently. The term old could mean the age of the person or the age of the relationship or should I put the donkey in the front and say could reveal the age of yours truly. The reason for me to start ruminating on this was the fact that I had once remarked to a friend dufing a conversation that " The problem is sitting before me". The intention of my remark was to indicare that a person's valour or wisdom needed to be measured on one's intention to sit before me since I have an appetite for human brains. But the person chose to put me in my place by suddenly rising and saying the problem will leave. I was quick to realise that the words could also be read as that I was referring to the other as the problem. Undoubtedly, it was succint way of reminding me that I was not the doorstep of mastery over language and communication skills. Therefore, any one reading should empathise with this handicap of yours truly and only take the opportunity of correcting the use of such phrases through the comments menu.

Reverting to the old friend of mine who converses with me across continents, it must be said that I have carefully chosen the word old. By quirk of fate, he happens to have appeared ahead of me on planet Earth by a couple of years but convert them into months, weeks, days, hours et al, the young friend indeed is much older to me. I am sure that on reading this the adventurer in him will bring him straight to my doorstep to land his boots on my bottoms. Be that as it may since this bonhomie of ours is over quarter century young. Normally the sort to humour me in the worst of situations, I must concede that he set me thinking by one of his remarks. without building the suspense any more, let me share the remark. He remarked " Man was not meant to be employed and earn money from another. He is just another animal whose primary tasks were to hunt for food, shelter himself from nature and procreate for the sake of Noah's Ark". Think about it mate.

In jungle law, might is right. The weaker ones with a crafty brain brought in concepts of social living. They administered while the others did the work. Paper touted as money was dished out as wages. Nomenclature of incentives and promotions thrown in to distract one from the main agenda. These have gone to such an extent that today money measures the worth of a man. Similarly, one's status is dependent on the number of followers (preferably mute ones ). The arguments went on and it looked like he would soon set up a jungle and invite us all to join in the paleolithic style of living.

Mate, every species has this. The bees have queen bees and worker bees. So do have ants. Elephants, cows et al move in herds. Leadership qualities are there in all types of living beings. The saddest part today is enterprise means the capacity to betray the trust reposed in one and not the resourcefulness to innovate and deliver. Can we not redeem ourselves by setting ourselves as models for others to emulate? The urge to set a trend which would reverse the existing degenerating ethics is the need of the hour. Another friend of mine has displayed courage in tossing the papers of employment since it did not conform to the ideals but this courage needs to be supplanted with the courage to lead from the front and mould at least another dozen such persons. This would impact the social change.

Mate, I hope my answer is clear. Even if we lead a jungle life the battles would be there to fight. We will fight and we shall show that the victory does not lie with the individual but with history. Recently I had been to a laboratory which displayed a portrait of Gandhi with the lines that "He believed in disarming his enemies with a smile." May I take the libery of saying that though I have been a steadfast critic of Gandhian idealogy, I would like to correct the above statement to read " He believed in disarming his adversaries with a smile." Apparently, the man did not consider anyone his enemy. Should we not give him his due? As my good friend could be my adversary too or a rival or a competitor but he does not become my enemy. Even with the boots on my bottoms, I would still consider him my friend and not a foe.

Another day of wild solo brainstorming