Cowboy turned Technical Writer

Wanting to become a cowboy landed me in a soup of lecturing dysentery from my teacher and parents. I still remember the expanded eyeballs of my teacher rolling in utter shock hearing that I want to become a cowboy when I grow up. What is so wrong in wanting to tend cows? Did she not know that a person who tends his own livestock and live life depending least on others is the most independent person in the world? Anyway, she reported to my parents that my aim in life is to become a cowboy.

Hell, my parents lectured me frantically and breathlessly as if I had already signed a contract with the devil. They must have thought that bringing up children is the same as flying a kite where one have to pull the string a lot. Older boys in the school make fun of me for being wanting to become a cowboy. I don’t know why teachers and grownups are so keen on asking the dull question “what do you want to become?” There will be some smile or that mysterious smirk if the response is ‘Doctor,’ ‘Engineer,’ ‘Scientist,’ ‘Army,’ etc. Ah, I wonder how many real doctors, engineers, scientists have this question produced?

For my cowboy part, I have to drop it at least in my responses to teachers and elders. But, the picture of me that I visualized then, playing the flute under a big tree and tending cows in the plush green hillside remains like a painting even today. Sometimes I wonder ‘how life would be if I really am the village cowboy?’ The simple answer is; that would also be ‘life’ same as this that I am living sans the city with all its good and bad sides.

Whenever, I see cows and buffaloes in the city outskirt I feel something which is between pity and shock. Pity, thinking that they never will get to see the plush green hillside full of grass that I have seen and shock considering how they manage to survive in a place that has so less pasture and greenery. Well, for them it is the life that they know and have no reasons to complain as such.

I am like an experimental cow brought from the lush green hills to test how it survives in the less green city. Thank god that I am not a cow and that I don’t find it too difficult to live life in a crowded city and most of all, I don’t eat grass, which otherwise would have made me miss the hills too much.

Regarding my aim in life of becoming a cowboy; well, the dream remains unfulfilled. Sometimes, I try finding even a dim streak of similarity between tending cows and technical writing just to prove that my cowboy dream is partially fulfilled, but I think I need more time and philosophy to see that mirage. Moreover, I’ve not been so far successful in assessing how many of my friends who said what they want to be when they grow up are really what they are today.

This blogpost is dedicated to all those who didn’t qualify to become cowboys but landed up in the profession called Technical Writing.

How Much is Bain-tiss?

Bain-tiss kitna hota hain? I asked the old man when he said the price for 1 kilo rice is bain-tiss. The whole conversation was in Hindi initially. I used all my fingers and flicked whether it is 33, 34, 35 or 45. He got a little pissed off unable to comprehend why I don't know ‘bain-tiss’ when I am able talk to him in Hindi.

At that very moment, all I wanted to do was to narrate my biography regarding my ignorance of Hindi, how I learned it and is still learning it. I also wanted to tell him that I always flunked in my Hindi papers, when I was in school. Time being precious for both of us, I never got the chance to explain my boring biography.

As my final attempt, I politely asked him “uncle bain-tiss English mein kitna hota hain?” This is when he lost his cool and barked back to me in English, “What language are you speaking?” As a counter move, I shot back in English “I was asking you how much is ‘bain-tiss’?” He replied “I don’t know English” in fluent English.

I feel a heat pumping up from within but, I did a good job in controlling at that very moment. I just commented “uncle you are talking to me in English and how can you say that you don’t know English?” He shot back, “I don’t know.” So, I left the shop saying “OK I’ll go to some shop who knows English.”

I have not gone to that shop again after this Hindi-English drama. But, I seriously want to go and apologize to the old man for the shouting that we unnecessarily exchanged. On second thought the whole thing happened for my ignorance of how much is ‘bain-tiss’ and his possible ignorance of how much is bain-tiss in English.

Gosh, ‘bain-tiss’ now makes me go farther to purchase things. This is the nearest shop from the place I am staying. To hell with ‘bain-tiss.’ By the way, how much is bain-tiss? 35, 34, 36 or something, I still need to know.

Pessimists are the Greatest Inventors

What's so wrong if I am pessimistic? Oh yez, the dictionary says something like ‘a pessimist is a person who believes that bad things are more likely to happen than good things.’ So what? Aren’t bad things happening anyway all around you even if you are super duper optimistic?

Lately, I am tempted to think that the word ‘pessimism’ and all its derivatives are misnomers, invented just for the heck of having antonyms of optimism. Wait, ‘optimism’ itself becomes funny now. OK, lets assume these words are very much valid without which human existence itself would be threatened. Yes, without pessimists in our midst, the world would be a really shitty landmine.

Let me define an optimist and a pessimist, ‘an optimist is a person who sits idle assuming that everything would be alright in the end, and a pessimist is a person who thinks something bad will happen that he/she does something to prevent the unforeseen bad from happening.’ Hmmm, not impressed? Read on….

No optimists would have invented the parachute. An optimist would have gone on thinking that everything would be OK. I can vouch, a hardcore pessimist invented the parachute to make the invention of fighter crafts and helicopters complete. Pilots should be thankful to this pessimistic inventor whoever he may be.

Now, won’t you agree that bullet proof could have been invented by some pessimist? The inventive ideas of life jacket for sailors, helmet for bikers, seat belt for cars, anti landmine vehicles, etc, took shape in the heads of pessimists.

I can’t go on counting all the possibilities for you, you too do the counting. Here, we have another need to reserve a day in a year to celebrate it as “Pessimism Day.” Not a bad idea!!! Need to learn the art of being a pessimist once in a while.