Ganesha in a Fix

The weather being unbearable, Ganesha waved his elephantine trunk and flapped the jumbo ears to ward of flies and humid air hanging around him like a blanket. He rued, for the umpteenth time, his decision to open his heart to the aspirants thronging the porticos of entrance examination centres. However, he realised this act of consideration ran three-fold: (1) To keep his idol bathed, dressed and bedecked with a few flowers (2) To keep the dependent vendors in business and earn a living and (3) To hold on to the thinning population of believers, still reposing faith in him as a fixer of difficulties.

In his overriding affection for his believers, he had slowly compromised the level of commitment required to become eligible to seek his help as a fixer. Even his elephantine mind could not anticipate the ingenious methods these seekers started to conjure up and employ to get his attention. He wanted to point out, with such a brilliance the seeker could have easily succeeded in their pursuits, without his help. He did not do so as he had to bestow benevolence and not lecture them. Yet he decided to use their level of innovation in an inversely proportional scale, he would design, to grade their eligibility.

What worried him was the increase in the workload to keep abreast of the level of innovations being brought to his consideration. Not only that, now he had to devise that appropriate grading scale, which should reflect his unbiased approach. He feared that if, by any chance, the existence of this secret scale becomes public knowledge what sort of litigations and allegations he may have to face? Whatever way he looked at it he ended up losing the game.

His mind wandered around and stayed on to a particular seeker, who came some time ago. The seeker had everything going for him but was suffering with self-doubt. On his own, it turned out, he did well and succeeded in his attempt and yet he believed that Ganesha did something for him. After lot of deliberations, the seeker decided to install a signage at the entrance as a thanksgiving offering. When the euphoria died down, Ganesha noticed that almost 80% of the signage was used up in proclaiming the seeker’s antecedent. Ganesh felt the seeker could have chosen a better way to express that gratitude.

The world has come to such a pause, that now even contestants and exit pollsters chose to seek his “fix” in addition to the entrance examinees. In hindsight Ganesha blamed his rash act to deny entrance to his father while standing guard duty. He could understand the “entrance” part but was perplexed with the “exit” part! The complexity brought in by the exit pollsters overloaded his brain for two reasons: (1) Unbearable summer heat wave and (2) Both events occurring one after the other. In his mind a curious thought flashed by "Why not let my companion Mouse handle the rat race of politics and the ever eager pollsters?"

Oh Ganesha!

Please reveal the questions in my dream and do not forget to hardwire it into my memory. I forget things easily.

Please make sure the others taking the exam, in my Centre, to slow down for some time and thereby forced to leave some of the questions unanswered.

Please cast a spell and make everyone, except me, to feel drowsy and struggle to answer the questions, to the satisfaction of the evaluator. 

Please ensure, whatever happens, do not permit re-examination. 

Though confused over pass mark or grace mark, I am clear in what I want: Rank mark. Will you make it possible? I assure you, whatever be the next exam I will manage it by myself.

Ganesha graded this seeker as best among other applicants. This seeker did not want to trouble other candidates and hopeful of doing it on his own next time, if gets the ranking mark now!

Ganesha cast his mind wide and far to search for a solution to extricate himself from any future allegations of bias. Finally, he hit upon the idea of turning the tables on each one of the seekers:

He revealed the questions and forgot to hardwire it into this seeker’s memory. He too can claim forgetfulness! He decided to slow down the ‘comprehension faculty’ of this seeker and thereby evened the odds of all of them. Ganesha decided to play the disappearing trick of written answers and made this seeker to re-write them from the beginning, as a valuable lesson for the future. This poor seeker did not know that even with grace marks getting a pass mark is doubtful. It perplexed why this seeker is bothering now itself about re-examination?

Ganesha spent considerable time to deal with the hopeful seeker. He did not want to be hard or very soft though the appeal for help was radically different from mound of applications he had scrutinized. The seeker while asking for a boon had unwittingly left a backdoor open, assuring to do better in the next entrance examination. Ganesha took pride in always granting a viable ‘wish’ to any seeker. After carefully reviewing the request, studying it for any hidden catch embedded craftily, Ganesh decided to grant the ‘wish’ to do better next time.

The mouse sitting by the left side of Ganesha screeched impatiently to know when it can start shredding the disposed application papers. Ganesha was in a fix to decide whether the papers are required to be kept safely for some more time. The hungry mouse pointed out that as matter had been settled ,he can dispose them off. 

Turning to his right Ganesha saw yet another mound of applications. For a moment he was scared whether the disappearing tricks he played on the candidates, during entrance examination, are catching up with him? The eager mouse clarified, “They are pre-election and post-election petitions from candidates and pollsters!” Ganesha pondered over the fact - EVMs are said to be stand alone, air-gapped and hack-proof. For quite some time he had been thinking 'if someone could gnaw at it, the mouse had the best chance of crunching it'! Ganesha hurriedly vacated his seat anointing (nominating) the mouse to adjudicate on this weighty issue. 

Laptop Gee

Imaginch sat like a statue in front of his laptop. The screen, perhaps to tease him, stared back without straining any photons. Some of the keys have already announced their reluctance to respond to his touch. Even in this stalemated condition, Imaginch could not help but to recall the stand-off of top-notch gun fighters from the old wild west films. In the background, he even could hear snatches of the lilting music score of Ennio Morricone! He chided himself for, losing track thus in, daydreaming. 

Refocusing on his objective, he scrolled through streams of sent and responded messages, dating back to about six months. To ensure delivery to the recipients, he had used from e-mails to simple messaging services available and familiar to him. In addition, Imaginch had included crisp 'teasers' (on the sly, of course) such as (1)” Going down the memory lane is like rushing through the downward loop or struggling through the upward loop of a roller-coaster. A nauseating and frightening experience.  (2)  Better ask the horse whether it is thirsty before taking it to a trough of water. Or otherwise, the horse might ask you why you didn't check up before dragging it to the trough?” After each ‘send’ command he had expectantly awaited replies from among positive, negative or N I (Not Interested) options. 

His alter ego stepped in to point out that like a ripple, at the center of a pond, reaching the shore, the waves of Imaginch’s communication had reached relatives and their relatives and friends, his friends, their relatives and their friends. Even though both of them are rarely on the same page, it vehemently agreed with him that six months was unreasonably a long period of time to respond. The alter ago did not miss the opportunity to point out and criticize Imaginch for his failed sales pitch.

It was quite a disappointment to Imaginch, that none of the recipients had the time or inclination to send a reply. All he wanted was a confirmation that they had read, at least one of his texts. His alter ego ran an interference with him, urging to confront each one of them, by his usual communication mode. Pleaded with him to become aggressive and remind them of his attentive participation, whenever anyone of them needed him as a “sounding board.” It vociferously drew his attention that his hearing started to diminish from that “kind-gesture-time onwards.” The alter ego had this axe to grind - being constantly ignored. 

Like a liquid seeping through a tiny crack, the reality percolated downwards and collected as self-doubt. Imaginch’s alter ego readily absorbed this feeling, as any dehydrated sponge would do, and started scripting screenplays fueling the growth of self-doubt into helplessness.

Imaginch did not notice the sudden gathering of ominous black clouds and was startled by a whip lash of thunder after a blinding flash of lightning. The hesitant rain drops, falling sporadically, produced discordant notes. Soon, a heavy downpour, with gusting winds, commenced and the sound of pelting rain drops produced a mesmerizing effect, to say the least. He wondered at the way the branches and leaves of plants managed the fury of rain drops by simply bending without resisting. What struck him the most was the sight of a tall, lone tree, swaying and acknowledging the wind and rain. Branches, mostly bald without leaves, did not matter to it. Imaginch wondered whether the tree also agonised with communication gap!

As if waiting for a chance, the alter ego wagged its index finger and said, "Did you get the message? What if no one responds? Is it the reason you allowed self-doubt and helplessness to swamp you? Now that you have collected a laundry list of persons who could be taken off from your communication spectrum and is it not a positive outcome? You have no talent to be a salesman and still why did you try to sell your work product?" His alter ego had the last laugh – “Did I not watch your struggles and then struggled to understand your output? Believe me I had no choice.”

Imaginch had no answer to these admonishments and remembered his sly teaser about the horse. He understood if the work product is good, no salesmanship is required. He decided not to allow the horse to gallop on its own free will, anymore. With a long-drawn-out sigh, Imaginch closed down the laptop. He understood that it would be better if nobody knew about his ‘much ado about nothing’ and decided on " No more ripples in a pond brimming with water or bone dry." 

 Imaginch thanked the laptop, for not taking sides with his alter ego and not passing snide remarks. On a happier note, switched it off, for now.