A brush with Palm Leaf Predictions

I could not resist the curiosity when I was told that I was 5 km from place called Tambram and decided to visit the town. Naadi shastra or the past, present and future life written on the ancient leaves, they say 2000 years old, is practiced in this small town and hence my this visit. The impression of my RTI was faxed in the afternoon and it had been informed that leaves matching my impression have been found from amongst thousands of such leaves. A friendly warning was also given to me to beware of the ‘black magic’.

The person accompanying me was narrating ‘It is occult, I saw it in your eyes, you are a believer and hence this opportunity has been given to you. You will see how the sages had foreseen your arrival here thousands of years ago. But btw are you married?’

I respond back, ‘I was thinking that the reader will predict that from the leaf’

‘He will, he will! He will tell you the name of your wife if you are married or the name of the girl you will marry and even the direction you will find her’, he said

‘Let us see what happens’, I replied. We had reached the place where the readers stayed and soon one of the readers of ancient leaves came and the person accompanying me bowed with respect.

After settling the person started reading something from the first leaf in the bundle of leaves, which was in the question answer form. I was supposed to respond only in ‘yes’ or ‘no’. A series of ‘no’ would mean that the leaf described some other person while a continued series of ‘yes’ would describe some of the events of my life and then I would be able to know the rest of my life from the leaf.

He began by asking ‘You are a student of medicine’. I said ‘no’ and he kept that leaf aside.
‘You were born on Thursday’, I said ‘no’ and even that leaf went aside.
‘You don’t have younger brother and sister’, I said ‘yes’ and he read further, you were born during night, I said ‘no’ and the leaf went aside.
‘You have a sister and she is eldest amongst the siblings’ he said, to which I replied ‘I have a sister but she is not eldest’
‘You are 4 brothers and sister, more / few’ and I answered.
‘You are 2 brothers and sister, more/ less’, he asked to which I again responded but I was getting bored. The fellow had already extracted the information that we are two brothers and one sister, my brother being the eldest and sister next.
He continued, verifying the mother’s name, my education, time of birth, if I was in Computer related profession (sages could see this two thousand years ago), if my father’s name resembled one of the avatars of Vishnu, if his name constituted of two words, and if I was in love with some one of different community.
Smart craft, I thought; they are building information on logic and inclusion or exclusion. The leaves were sets based on system of elimination and hovered around issues which could drive someone to a soothsayer and soon the complete bundle finished and the person left to bring another bundle and I continued taking notes on the questions he had asked.

In the next bundle, the information was actually similar to that filtered in first round, ‘you are the youngest amongst the brothers and sister’, about the family agricultural land, profession, that father’s name was in two words and then he tried to build the words,
First letter in father’s name and after a few leaves he got the right letter and then last and so on. For the second word he was asking if the last letter was like n/m, th, nh etc. Another logical move as the most common last words could be Singh, Ram etc and his guess could prove right. And in the process he continued to gather information.

As I had continued to take note of each of his questions the person was getting suspicious and it was visible that there was no leaf till then that matched my profile.
The second bundle of leaves had ended. He left again to bring a new bundle and soon returned and apologized that in ‘their’ system of Naadi (named after a renowned sage of Indian epics), no leaf had been written for me. He said that he would call for more leaves written by other sages as his other relatives followed those ‘systems’. He took name of two other renowned rishis of the epics to look more authentic (he pretended that all the great rishis were born in his ‘kulam’ and had left their collective wisdom for him).

But the idea of collective wisdom of three Rishi clans was interesting from historical perspective; I wondered what could have been our history if that had really happened:
Surely ‘Atharvans’ would not have been stolen of their skill of fire making and driven to the land of Avesta by the other rishi clan. The marriage of great El Yayati with Devayani and Sharmishtha would not have been a cause of thousands years of warfare. Yadu and not Puru would have been the king of Hastinapur and Puru’s children would not have perished as ‘Kurus’ and ‘Pandus’ in Mahabharata. Indian and Iranian Aryans would have not separated and many different clans like the Bharats, Turvasus, Anus, Purus and Druhyus could be visible today. Yadus wouldn’t be blamed in the Puranas for the disappearance of ‘Saraswati’.

There could have been only 1 veda and many rigvedic rishi clans would have not disappeared and priests from Egypt and Persia not migrated with their black magic for offering prayers for the Yadus. The ‘Shaka’ and ‘Huns’ would not have been here and the demography of several Northern states could be much different. May be we could still be studying in Taxila and not in &^%.

But only if those rishi clans had been one. And I could be call El ******* or Al ###### and our blood relatives of Rig Veda ‘the Asurs’ had not become the demons of our later literature.

The Naadi reader looked hopefully that I would be impressed by the names he had taken and would return to listen to the leaves written by other clans and which were still preserved by his family. But I was not impressed, my own country and my clan had had the most majestic history for over four thousand years, however deeply covered with dust today.

When I told the person accompanying me that I was not planning to return there again, he changed the topic for whatever intention he might have had- ‘Sir, would you like to have dinner with us, I am vegetarian like you, we are purest B********. My elder daughter is studying in USA, she is-’

But I had to cut him short, I was disappointed by the lack of accuracy of prediction and was not interested in what he was saying as the predictions had failed to point towards any direction.

The ‘Salvation’ Salary- Part I- “Kaun banega crorepati ?”

For a long time I was contemplating whether to write this mail or not, but an unwanted and unnecessary mail helped me take a decision in favour of writing these comments here.
We have many dreams like,
- entering a B School and cracking that 1crore + job,
- or being ‘down to earth’ and be just on the right side of the average figure say 19+3 =22 lakh salary for the next year;
- Or may be, just to teach a lesson to school kids throwing stones on your car window.
On my recent flight from Hyderabad to Kolkata, I met a gentleman from US. He asked how the B Schools in India could announce such grand figures like 1 crore + salaries when the US economy is under recession and can barely afford such costly employees just out of school. (And when top US B-Schools are not commanding such figures like USD 360000 which convert to the so called Rs 1.44 crore per annum figure)
Then I asked him back ‘why not, we are the brightest guys, after all- Aren’t we’?
He explained me the following:
1crore + has a huge component of bonus; with organizations losing 40-50% of their assets in last 1 year, employees are getting fired and who will offer such bonuses now? So talk of ‘actual’ figures USD 160000 to USD 110000, which most people will get.
With Federal, State and other taxes adding up to 43-44% of the salary and with other health insurances included, barely 50% of the gross salary is received. So make the above amount 50% of quoted figure
The one time joining allowance is also a major component of the gross ‘salary’ figure quoted so happily remove it forever.
If the earning is in dollar, so are the expenses and those are obviously huge so if you still have a coffee for Rs 10 in India then you pay Rs 300 for that abroad so the money flies away.
At the same time, the dollar has lost a lot of its power with respect to many currencies and so now commands less money value,
With all that, the standard of living thus affordable and the resultant savings is much less than compared to an Indian salary of say 15-20 lakh. So while the poor fellow would be struggling for the next one year just to cling to his job, claiming such figures is ‘wrong’ as that money would not be earned at the year end.
Even if in the past someone had managed fat bonuses for ‘claiming business’, they are now harvesting the crop in the form of sub prime for just getting that ‘cheap business on the account book’ and so most such smart people are now being fired left, right and centre. And when the hawks are not able to survive the present situation, what value will the doves bring?

What’s worse is
The magnitude of sub prime crises is huge; and only part losses have been reflected so far so as to gradually absorb the shock. So not only the present is tough but the future also doesn’t look rosy.
The credit card crises may further unfold.
The oil prices are soaring and so the winter may be cold (for less availability of oil) and hot (for the high oil prices).

Amidst this background I believe when the B Schools ‘doctor’ their salary figures to lure unsuspecting candidates, they command different capabilities of inflating those figures. For example, an I-banker can oblige his alma mater by putting a component of 3X year end bonus (tagged to performance targets which are obviously undeliverable in these conditions) and create a news paper sensation without possibly losing a single $ at the end of the forthcoming year.
In contrast, another B School with a pathetic finance curriculum and ‘almost’ no alumni in decent I-Banks (if there is any left now) will have to ride piggyback on its God father’s resources. But in the present situation when the crises is partly driven by the Real Estate, the back door entry to the 1 crore club through international real estate jobs also gets a beating.

So what to do next having yourself started this unethical warfare of bogus salary claims?

Obviously pretend holy and pass the buck to the enlightened student body for taking a decision to not to disclose the maximum figures (until the next year when you are able to manage one such figure). After all this is all what you did for one year ‘you scratch my back, I scratch your @#$.

(Next: Busting the average salary)

Memoirs of a lost world

Sir, where is your security? You should not move without the security’, the BDO was trying to please the SDO by his sweet talks.
‘Why, is this war zone?’ Amit had asked.
‘No sir, but we read about the cattle that you seized at the border some days back. These cattle smugglers carry arms with them. Your armed security must be your biggest defense in their sight’ the BDO explained.
‘What defense? Both my security personnel prayed for being released from my duty. They said that the duty hours were too long for them’, Amit said knowing well that the BDO was aware of this.
‘Sir, and you released the securities without even asking for a replacement’, BDO wanted to know more, but Amit only smiled.
The last few weeks had been tough; Amit had confiscated a number of trucks loaded with cattle being smuggled across the international border. At times when Amit had forced the trucks to stop, the PS had been inordinately late to report at the site. This had created a lot of tension when Amit had discussed the issues at the higher level. But …………
Traditional wisdom said that in case one is working on things where he could be antagonizing powerful people, his movements across the subdivision should not be known. And Amit followed that religiously. If he had to go to X block, he would tell the CA to inform the BDO of block Y that he would be reaching his block. If the security asked where he was going, the word would be Z block. Amit noticed how his securities would run to the toilet with their mobiles. Amit often wondered who was so interested in his movement. Whosoever it be, Amit used to ask the vehicle to finally go to block P or Q, surprising everyone- even himself.
This had created strange situation in Warpur over the last few months. SDO had confronted convoys of trucks that moved in groups of 10-15 trucks, all loaded with 15-18 large cattle. Despite the reluctance of the concerned police stations, all but one of those raids had been successful. But this had created a lot of pressure on the security personnel of the SDO, it was visible.
On the whole, the position of the security guard of the SDO was a prize posting in police; it was said ‘In case if the SDO is peace loving who conduct no raids then this is a risk free job with no night duties in crime areas. In case if the SDO does a lot of policing then providing this relevant information to the ‘concerned people’ about his movement could mean a lot of money’.
However, if the security were terrified to continue, it meant they had been failing in their duty of providing information to someone who was upset with them and hence their prayer for being released from the duty of SDO.
But should he ask for a replacement? Amit had thought a lot about this. The new person in fact would be more trusted to the other side and hence more risky for Amit. So unlike the expectation of many and to the shock of all, Amit had decided to not take a security anymore.
That day Amit had organized a ‘Tribal Certificate issue camp’ in one of the interior villages. As luck would have been, one huge convoy of some twenty trucks carrying cattle had planned this unknown route to avoid the SDO. Amit had stopped the trucks with no personal security or police around this time.
His raids had already inflicted a lot of loss to those ‘businessmen’. The worst affected of those raids were the truck drivers, all Pathans who had ruled those lands for over 300 years in the past. They would lose their jobs for their inability to either bring the vehicle and cattle safe or remove the ‘obstruction’.
That day was their luckiest; Amit was there, unarmed, and had still challenged them when they were at their best. There had been short discussion, very crisp. Their leader in late thirties- tall and fair and wearing a ‘tehmad and T-shirt’- had tried to educate Amit that his men were losing their money and livelihood. Every confiscated truck was dragging its owner and the driver’s families into penury. They were being harassed by the police and by the legal process for the release of it. They had to bribe and the systems, which they believed Amit represented, were not most honest.
Even as all his men were furious and wanted to settle the matter, he had asked Amit it he was willing to allow them to go and take his own way for which he assured all safety. But the worst part of the ‘ego’ is that neither does it die nor does it allow reason to prevail. Even if it was evident to Amit that it was impossible to stop those trucks at that time, he had said that he was confiscating those trucks and it was for the lack of force that he was not arresting those men there.
The truck drivers, the ferocious hot headed Arians, were furious (were they not the ones doing one of the roughest job, handling a 20 ton vehicle on their biceps). But there was one wise person amongst all there and his wisdom had prevailed that day.
The leader had decided to move away with his men, letting all the trucks parked there along with the cattle. But he had clearly told that he would incur this last loss due to Amit for his men. But next time he would not be responsible for anything.
Amit had to wait for the police to arrive on the spot. They had to hand over the ‘Zimma’ of the cattle to some local cowshed there. The stunned BDO and the driver pretended that they were happy for such a big haul but Amit knew that the situation could have been worse for all of them.
Amit knew what was to happen the next day, the vehicle would be released by court and some ‘legal owner’ of the cattle would appear. If not the PS, someone else in some other office would make money. All his hard work would go waste in half an hour.
It had been more than a year and a half in the job, holding multiple charges. For the first time in his service, he had witnessed magnanimity and real appreciation of the work he was doing but from a much unexpected corner.
Some 1500 km from his home, posted at one of the borders of the country in the most powerful service of the nation, Amit had felt very lonely.