Microstory 176 – Retro tales 3
Last week I was organizing my paper cuttings from the Times of India and Economic Times. I couldn’t help laughing when I thought about that scene from 1997. I was shifting from Kolkatta to Mumbai for my new job. In between the jobs I had time and so I decided to take the train from Kolkatta to my native place. I was at the station and I had around 9 boxes with me. My mother gave me that look at the platform and asked me what is in these boxes. I told her that it was all books and I told her that I got a new job because I bought these books ( not read). The climax was when I opened the boxes and one of the two boxes had old papers. The cat was out of the bag. Years later she narrated this incident to my wife and told her that he didn’t leave any trace of him in the city of joy, not even a newspaper. We all had a good laugh.
Microstory 177 – Second Opinion
A few weeks back my younger daughter had attended a public speaking session organized by one of our friends for the children in the age group of 10 to 12 years. Being a curious dad I peeped into one of those classes just to know how she was coping with the class. Instead of leaving that class after that check, I stood there for a couple of minutes as I heard an interesting concept. That rings a bell in me. Later my daughter shared the concept and I understood it well. My wife had to prepare a speech and we were struggling to get the structure for the audio talk after so many attempts. Then this idea rang a bell. Why can’t we use the same principle which our daughter used to deliver her speech? Finally, my wife started practising by implementing that concept. This episode made me realize how much we can learn from our kids and implement. As Da Vinci said, “ Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. Now let me reveal that the concept. It is called OREO ( Opinion, Reason, Example, Opinion). I was asking my daughter why O is repeated twice. She said, “ It is the way it is “. I rested my case. No second Opinion on Opinion in Oreo!
Microstory 178 – Opposing Ideas
The other day my wife was checking out some books on my bookshelf. In the past few weeks, she had read more books than I could ever imagine. She was stuck with some thoughts on her new book she wanted some new ideas. She asked me what book do you recommend? Without even thinking twice I told her to read, ” Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It” by Steven Pressfield “. What an Idea? While she was in that search for that book she came across the above two posters in my room. She said, ” What a paradox? I said, yes and was reminded of this aphorism.
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