Conversations-11

You must be the only dog in the world that washes its legs after an outing, Zack!

Tina, you bird-brained! What’s wrong with washing one’s feet after an outing? Boss does it. His family does it. Hygiene, buddy! You shit, sleep and live in the same cage. You’ll never understand the niceties of grooming!

Haha!

May I ask you the raison d’etre for your second round of guffaw?

Your Boss is thinking aloud about Fashion & Lifestyle. Am I right? …. I know you are privy to his thoughts as he blabbers in the morning as he trots along with you during morning walks. Zack, you’ve picked up some nuggets – say, niceties, grooming for example and throwing those catch phrases at me to impress and signal that you are a much more refined product from the Maker’s lab than me! Stop this crap!

Ok. You’re jealous. You’re going to be lonely for a fortnight or so soon….

Why? Are they sending me out!

Tina, fuggedit… I am escorting Boss to Muscat.

What where in your previous birth?...

Why, darling?

Travel is written on your forehead. A few months ago, you were in Bahrain. Now to Muscat.

What to do, Tina? Boss needs my company! Some intellectual counterpart, you know!

It is going to be lonely moreso…

Why?

Your Boss and you are out to Muscat. The Family will be out for Lucknow for a wedding. For a week, I will be alone.

What you plan to do?

Catch up with some reading, of course!

Reading! You’re not even my thumbsize! How will you hold the book?

Dog brains don’t understand ….

Mind your language, Tina. Ok. Which one you plan to read?

Your Boss is reading Desmond Morris on Human Beings and their body language. Let me gain some knowledge.

By the way, I will leave a few sheets of Sneha delicacies to savour. Whether you will get to taste them or not, at least, read her tongue-tickling copy.

Who’s Sneha?

Boss’s new intel-pal.

What’s that?

Intellect friend. She writes on delicacies. Remember a few weeks ago, she wrote about Dog delicacies that made you terribly happy!

Oh, you mean that? What’s she upto these days?

Heard of Shark Soup? Fugu fish? She relishes writing about these delicacies. I wonder whether she has tasted any of these stuff. I won’t be surprised if she is a vegan.

If so, how can she write about something she does not experience?

That’s modern day journalism… Someone experiences and notes down his/her thoughts. You hijack those thoughts from the net and rewrite.

What net?

Internet, dumbo! (laughs)

Why are you laughing, Zack?

Remembered Boss’s favourite story on experience…

What’s that?

Heard of Adi Shankara?

Who’s he or she?

Idiot, it is He.

Ok. What’s the story?

Shankara was engaged in a serious debate with a Buddhist couple. He was on a winning spree, but got stumped on one issue.

What’s that?

Shankara, you must understand, is a celibate.

What’s celibate?

Celibate or celibacy means he has never touched a woman in his life.

So?

The discussion turned towards marriage and family and Shankara was on his bes until thent. But…

What?

The couple retorted saying that how can a Bachelor or celibate can have more knowledge than a married couple on physical intimacy. Pure bookish knowledge is no substitute for experience.

So, what happened?

Shankara was stumped, as I told you a few minutes ago.

Hmm.

Then Shankara got into the body of someone who just died and experienced what marital bliss is all about. Came back and spoke with a lot of personal experience and …

He won the debate, right?

You’re getting smarter, Tina!

Why are we talking about Shankara?

Remember Sneha’s recipe? That’s the context.

Who was your Boss talking to?

Ritwik Sinha, his buddy! Ritwik works for a B-2-B travel magazine. He was narrating to Boss that a tourism board chairman gave him a lot of positive info about his state. When Ritwik landed in the state to be covered, what he experienced was totally different from what he was told! He has to change the entire angle of the story! He was trying to tell Boss that seeing is believing! Don’t write a word unless you have seen it!

Your Boss is stupid!

Why?

Come here. Can you see the blue sky?

Yes.

Can you see the full moon over Qutub Minar?

Yes.

Do you know some men landed on that strip a few years ago?

I don’t know. But Boss knows, I am sure.

Yes, your Boss knows. And believes that to be true.

Ok. What are you driving at?

Has your Boss been to Moon?

No.

If so, Boss has no Moon experience. Right?

Yes.

If yes, how can your Boss say the people have really landed on Moon?

Understandable. I will check out with him in Muscat and post you with progress.

What progress?

Oof! Slip of my tongue. Boss is contemplating the theme for next Progress Oman and asking for ideas from me.

Your ego is much larger than your Boss’s.

Ms Birdbrain, see you. Bye, bye!

More to continue….

Conversations-10

Zack, what happened to your Boss? He is terribly silent. Not even lifting daily newspapers. They are lying unopened or I see you flipping through as if you’re a scholar.

Tina, I asked him the same question the day he returned from Bahrain. He got up and left his seat to go …

I know… I know … He went to sleep.

Only chirkut like you go to sleep at the drop of a grain. Not enlightened souls like my Boss. When he closes his eyes, Tina, he does not sleep. Goes into meditation. Day or night.

That man has brainwashed you nicely. Pity you.

You bird-brained. You’ never understand. Nevertheless, I was rummaging through his bags last night and found the answer to his deep silence.

What? You found out the reason?

You bet. I did. I know the secret.

What’s it? Can you share it with me?

Why not? Knowledge is to be shared. He’s greatly influenced by the Black Swan writer.

Black Swan? What’s that?

Forgetit. What’s important is what he has written.

What has he written that made your Boss to stop reading newspapers?

Listen to this passage from Nassim Nicholas Taleb: “I then completely gave up reading newspapers and watching television, which freed up a considerable amount of time (say, one hour or more a day, enough time to read more than a hundred additional books per year, which after a couple of decades, starts mounting). But this argument was not quite the entire reason for my dictum in this book to avoid the newspapers, as we will see further benefits in avoiding the toxicity of information. It was initially a great excuse to avoid keeping up with the minutiae of business, a perfect alibi since I found nothing interesting about the details of the business world-inelegant, dull, pompous, greedy, unintellectual, selfish and boring.”

Hmm.

Yes, that prompted him perhaps to stop reading newspapers.

But I saw a carton which Boss’s daughter was moving around the house.

You’re smart. And observant. While Taleb has said ‘no’ to newspapers, he has not said ‘la’ to magazines! So, Boss brought a cartload of magazines to read….

Idiot!

What did you say?

Idiot!

You mean my Boss?

Of course, Zack!

Can I ask for reasons?

You can. And You have. Let me tell you. From what I make out, your Boss is a confused entity. He cannot give up reading.

Why not?

Then what he will write?

Hmm.

You have to understand this clearly. For any writer to write, he has to read. Your Boss is a writer. Good, bad, indifferent is a different question to tackle. But basically a writer. So he has to read. If not newspapers, then something else. It is just a question of time before he returns to newspapers. Can’t stay away for too long.

Why not?

We birds know it. You dogs know it. You and I don’t have to read something to strike a conversation. If we are friends, we can just sit without any conversation and not feeling bad. But the human kind or mind works differently. They cannot afford to sit silently in a room without opening their oral trapdoor and talk something. To engage in a conversation, you need something. That something comes out of newspapers or books. Got it?

I must tell you something, Tina. You’re definitely not a chirkut or birdbrained. Forgive me for underestimating your intelligence. By the way, how did you gain this wisdom?

What wisdom?

Whatever… What you just spoke about the human trait etc.

Listen. You accept we are flying creatures?

Yes.

What do you get when fly in the sky?

What?

A bird eye view. A broad picture. What we get to see, even you cannot. Know why? Because your vision is pretty narrow.

True, Tina…. But tell me. You’ve been inside the Mansion for long. Wonder when did you fly to get a bird eyeview.

Zack, it is in our genes. It is hardwired in your DNA. I can see the world without seeing. I can watch happenings without watching.

You sound philosophical. Am getting worried.

Relax, Zack. You are equally enlightened. Only thing is that you are unaware.

You mean, you know, but you still don’t know.

That’s it….

Let me have some water. Very confusing and my head is reeling.
(Zack finishes off the bowl of water in one swig and returns)

Are you okay?

Oh sure. You made me think deeply. Not that I don’t in the past. If you birds can do, we dogs can equally do. After all, the same superpower that created you also has an hand in making me. Only looks and behaviours are different. Otherwise, birds and dogs are one and the same.

Now you sound philosophical!

On second thoughts, philosophical does not mean something extraordinary. But making sense out of the ordinary. When you look deeply into issues, you get to see that was apparent to the naked eye, still not visible. Conditioning oneself to see things in its true and original form.

(A bark outside)

That’s Leila from upstairs. She is elder to me, but shies away. I am not interested in her at all.

What’s wrong with her? I have seen. She is fair. And Lean.

She eats non-vegetarian stuff. Fish, Mutton, Chicken.

You don’t because of your Boss. He is a vegetarian and has turned you into one.

That’s not fair to him and his family. They feed me boiled egg every weekend. Feed me chicken flavoured stix.

You’ve not tasted blood, Zack! Am I right?

No. You’re not right. I have bitten Boss’ madam several times and tasted blood.

How can you do that? I mean biting Boss’ madam…

Am bit afraid of her. Sometimes she terrifies me and make me feel low. I retaliate by attacking her.

How frequently?

Once a month at least.

How does she react?

For two days she will remain aloof. Not feed me directly. She will cook and ask Boss or his daughter to feed me. Even take me out for my nightly walks, but no talks. Silent walkathons.

How do you patch up?

Nothing great. It just happens. On Day 3, I wag my tail when she leaves for office and pull her dupatta. Make her feel that I love her. I truly respect her. And in the evening when she returns from office, I shout at her for coming so late! She feels happy and we regain normalcy.

Till the next bite? Haha!

You can say so.

Have you ever bitten Boss?

Once. Only once. I felt very sorry after that episode.

Did you apologise?

Don’t know how to do that. Don’t worry. Then I read his blog on his learnings from that biting lesson and almost burst into tears.

Will you mind biting him again?

…. Hmmm….. Why not?

What?

Why not? If my biting can make him learn something new in life. Why not? Hahaha!

More to come