Flea market!

“Can’t swim like a fish even if you wish!

Can’t fly like a bird, the wish was in vain!

Can’t hunt with arms alone but even then,

The homo sapien is the top of the chain!”

Do you know the an odd difference between a carnivore and a Primate? 

The answer is as small as a fly! read on!

In his best selling book called The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal by English zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris that looks at humans as a species. The author makes so many claims without sounding very serious but the logic is strong!

The book is actually a grand daddy of sorts of the very famous Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari! The classic has sold over 20 million copies and is still considered a great book! Among the many things he discusses in the book, the central point of course is about that the one species of the ape which is Naked! The human! An average human may have some hair but he or she is more or less hairless and having no external coating! The explanations given by the author are logical sometimes and funny other times! 

Among the many difference he says about the Naked Ape, he states how they never get fleas but at least here the Naked Ape is like other ! And that was primarily due to two things apparently! 

Now we do get the occasional flea bite which form rare diagnosis but those are accidental fleas! 

The basic point, is that carnivores have fleas but primates do not. 

So Monkeys and apes are plagued by lice and certain other external parasites but, contrary to popular opinion, they are completely flealess, hope you read that right! It says Flealess and not FEARless!!

To understand this, it is necessary to examine the life-cycle of the flea. 

This insect lays its eggs, not on the body of its host, but amongst the detritus  (waste or debris of any kind) of its victim’s sleeping quarters!

The eggs take three days to hatch into small, crawling maggots. 

These larvae do not feed on blood, but on the waste matter that has accumulated in the dirt of the den or lair!

After a couple of weeks they spin a cocoon and pupate and remain in this dormant condition for approximately two more weeks before emerging as adults, ready to hop on to a suitable host body! This means that they like some specific people of some specific species who take so much time to get ready! 

So for at least the first month of its life a flea is cut off from its host species!

It is clear from this why a nomadic mammal, such as a monkey or ape, is not troubled by fleas! Even if a few stray fleas do happen on to one and mate successfully, their eggs will be left behind as the primate group moves on, and when the pupae hatch there will be no host ‘at home’ to continue the relationship. Fleas are therefore parasites only of animals with a fixed home base, such as the typical carnivores!

Another point mentioned in a nature journal is that the Naked Ape has very fine hair wherever he or she has hair! These are not good breeding grounds for the flea! So one of the advantages of being a nomad in the early life and being hairless now means that the Fleas do not choose you! Being Hairless or Bare or Naked is the right choice for this ape! The right choice reminds me of the slogan, Yehi hai right choice, Baby! Made famous by birthday celebrity Luís Remo de Maria Bernardo Fernandes known professionally as Remo Fernandes! 

Now that does not mean you cannot get lice! So be nice!

Shubh ratri!

Beautiful soul!

The piglet ran to his mother in tears

Mother asked, “why are you sad, my cutie!

“I just saw the owlet baby so brown!

Mother, why can’t it be as beautiful as me!”

One of the biggest comfort half lie half truth we all have said either to ourselves or someone else or our children is, “Beauty lies in the eyes of the Beholder!”. This is one of the most commonly used saying in different ways especially in the soap operas or tear jerker movies! There was one poster I still remember which was hung in a Pub (The teetotaler in me went for the music and mocktails!); which said, “Beauty is in the eyes of the Beer Holder!!” This version or ‘meme’ is now known as the Beer Goggles! Which is when you find someone attractive when you are drunk!

Even in the famous scene from the original Planet of the Apes when Chalten Heston request the ape for a kiss! The ape says, “But you are so ugly!”

Imagine how the situation is changed there! Like how we say that even the mother of a monkey would find her child to be beautiful! Then again those are the Maternal Eyes! 

But I am sure that the most ugly creature according to the human may actually find a human ugly! So the Phrase is very true after all!

Coming back to the original phrase, when you look into history this and similar saying has been used for ages!

It has often been attributed to Shakespeare and yes! the phrase was not used by him or in any of his plays though a similar sentiment was used in “Love’s Labours Lost” which read, “Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye.” 

Which roughly translates of course to the same thing!

The concept that each individual has a different inclination of what is beautiful first appeared in the 3rd century BC in Greek. According to Plato, the sense of beauty is itself transient in nature. So, a thing beautiful for one might not be beautiful for the other!

Only philosophers take this path of inner beauty and this has been going on especially in plays and books! 

In 1588, the English dramatist John Lyly, in his Euphues and his England, wrote:

“…as neere is Fancie to Beautie, as the pricke to the Rose, as the stalke to the rynde, as the earth to the roote.” (Now frankly even I did not understand this very well but it has been said that this is close to the phrase!)

Benjamin Franklin paralleled the sentiment in Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1741, writing:

“Beauty, like supreme dominion

Is but supported by opinion”

Then another version penned by David Hume;

“Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.”

Now these are the versions! But who was the person who coined the proper phrase we use now!? well, the the modern-day version of the expression is believed to have first appeared in English in the 19th century. 

Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (née Hamilton) is widely credited with coining the saying in its current form. Hungerford wrote many books, often under the pseudonym of ‘The Duchess’. In the 1878 novel Molly Bawn, there’s the line “It is an old axiom, and well said, that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

The phrase has stood the test of time which reminds me of another famous quote by birthday celebrity Balakrishna Menon aka Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati, ““The tragedy of human history is decreasing happiness in the midst of increasing comforts”! The Bhagavad Geeta authored by him is an inspiration! 

Now get your Beauty sleep!

Shubh ratri!

Cat’s got your bell!

“He was a monster a tyrant a giant!

That was the call, the scream, the rant!

That is true! scream the owl and the bat!

Then asks the monkey, “but who will tell him that!?”

The best discussions of students and workers is about their teachers and bosses! The discussion is either how the homework is more but marks given is less which is similar to how the work is more but the salary is less! Then every other day it will be agreed that something must be done about it and every day they would reach a point when everyone will stare at everyone else thinking or saying, “All that is good but who will bell the cat!?”

From the time there have been two humans interacting, one would always think that he or she is getting a better deal but; Who will bell the cat!?

Do you remember the original story of the Bell and the Cat? It is often attributed to Aesop’s fables! 

Yes…the bubble bursting needle arrives!

The two things we have realized now is that the story is not how we have read it and second is that it is actually not a part of Aesop’s fables!

Now, Belling the Cat is a fable also known under the titles The Bell and the Cat and The Mice in Council! 

In the popular story which we all have heard or read, a group of mice are constantly tormented by a cat! So much so that one fine day they have a meeting and unanimously decide that the best solution would be to tie a bell around the cat so that they can hear the cat and be warned! Everyone agrees that it is the best solution ever! They even arrange for the bell! But then the Crore rupees question remains; “Who will bell the cat or which mouse would tie the bell to the neck of the cat?” 

Naturally they would keep pondering on this and suddenly the cat would appear out of nowhere and the council of mice run away! 

The term has become an idiom describing a group agreeing to perform an impossibly difficult task! The story provides a moral lesson about the fundamental difference between ideas and their feasibility!

The first irregularity is that this is not the original story!

The Greek version of the fable concerns a cat that pretends to be a sack hanging from a peg in order to deceive the chickens, but his disguise is seen through by a rooster! Later on the Rooster is replaced by mice and undergoes the modifications as the popular version! 

Then there are actually man variations with many animals with the story! You can have you pick! 

Now who is Aesop and what are these fables which actually are very similar to our Panchatantra and Jataka tales! 

Aesop’s Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of varied and unclear origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different media! 

The fables originally belonged to oral tradition and were not collected for some three centuries after Aesop’s death!

By that time, a variety of other stories, jokes and proverbs were being ascribed to him, although some of that material was from sources earlier than him or came from beyond the Greek cultural sphere. The process of inclusion has continued until the present, with some of the fables unrecorded before the Late Middle Ages and others arriving from outside Europe.

So the cat and mice story although attributed to Aesop, was not recorded before the Middle Ages! Which means that it is recent and historically not a part of the ‘Official Aesopica!’ or Official Aesop’s fables! Nevertheless, a story is good not because of who told or wrote the story but because the message it conveys is good! In that context the WHO WILL BELL THE CAT is a fabulous fable! Fabulous also was birthday celebrity Chalapathi Rao famous for his tiger personality and cat eyes!

Now BELL the alarm and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

You Rekha!? Or!…

“It was a sight to be remembered for ages!

Right from Gurus to the clever sages!

He had found the clue for the crown!

Full of joy he ran bare all over the town!”

Have you ever made a monumental discovery or thought of making one and immediately said EUREKA!?

Yes! I know that happened to Archimedes and he uttered these words and after that such monumental discoveries are known as EUREKA moments! 

Having read my blogs before I know you can almost feel the ‘factual’ needle bursting the enthusiasm bubble! Actually Archimedes did not say EUREKA (since he was Greek and not Shashi Tharoor’s great grand father!) and also some say that he did not say the words entirely! 

Read on! 

Let us first recap the original (??) story! After gaining the royal power, King Hieron II of Syracuse in Sicily gave a goldsmith a bar of gold to make it into a crown. After goldsmith delivered the pure gold crown to the king, he was suspicious. The king suspected that the goldsmith had cheated him. The king thought the goldsmith had mixed some of the gold for the cheaper silver, while keeping the leftover gold. However, the king had no way of proving his suspicions, so he asked Archimedes to find out whether the crown was made from pure gold, without damaging the crown! 

So Archimedes accepts the challenge and, during a subsequent trip to the public baths, realizes that the more his body sinks into the water, the more water is displaced–making the displaced water an exact measure of his volume. Because gold weighs more than silver, he reasons that a crown mixed with silver would have to be bulkier to reach the same weight as one composed only of gold; therefore it would displace more water than its pure gold counterpart. Realizing he has hit upon a solution, the young Greek math whiz leaps out of the bath and rushes home naked crying “Eureka! Eureka!” Or, translated: “I’ve found it! I’ve found it!”! 

The first thing is that if he did utter those words then he would have said, “heúrēka”! meaning “I have found (it)”, which is the first person singular perfect indicative active of the verb εὑρίσκω heurískō “I find”.

It is closely related to heuristic, which refers to experience-based techniques for problem-solving, learning, and discovery! In fact I had written about Heuristic and Bias some days back! 

Furthermore apparently Archimedes himself never wrote about this episode, although he spent plenty of time detailing the laws of buoyancy and the lever (prompting him to reputedly pronounce: “Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth”), calculating the ratio of circles we know as pi, and starting along the path to the integral calculus that would not be invented for another 2,000 years, among other mathematical, engineering and physical feats! 

The oldest authority for the naked-Archimedes eureka story is Vitruvius, a Roman writer, who included the tale in his introduction to his ninth book of architecture some time in the first century B.C. Because this was nearly 200 years after the event is presumed to have taken place, the story may have been improved in the telling. He could have taken some creative liberties like making the clothes disappear and these words appear! 

Many long list of scientists, including Galileo, have read the account and thought “That can’t be right.”!

Much like Newton’s apple (Yes! Even that did not exist! now that is another day! another bubble to burst!), the exclamation persists because of the enduring power of the story! A king! a crafty merchant!, golden crown, a life in the balance and finally a naked Geek or Greek running screaming EUREKA!

 Now our thirst for such stories makes it impossible to get away from the drama! Whether there was a EUREKA moment or not, the fact of the matter is that Archimedes was a font of both mathematical insight and smart quotes as well as the hero of some really great stories and he was super intelligent! 

Finally, he did get the solution in either way! Now whether he got it in a public bath naked or in a private lab (fully clothed!); it all is up to you and your imagination! The font of both imagination and many loud moments like EUREKA is also the birthday celebrity Thesingu Rajendar or T Rajendar! 

Now take a warm bath before you sleep! You may also get a EUREKA moment or good sleep! Good result either way!

Shubh Ratri!

The biggest motivation to success!

“He had no reluctance, he had no qualms!

If you’d call him he will rush into your arms!

All he knew is to cry in pain or laugh with joy!

‘Cause he was not a big anxious man! Just a little boy!”

Have you seen how kids or toddlers simply walk to the edge of the bed or the floor and keep walking! They do not care that they fall! All they want to do is explore! Ever since we have got some sense, that is the core thing for every human!

The inbuilt first tendency of many human being is to explore! No wonder tourism is a big industry! So when we were young toddlers, that was our greatest motivation. As we get older, our biggest motivation is this!

We have this motivation to go to work or read or follow rules or even be decent! Of course we must do these things without any though but then Humans will be humans!

In the book by Daniel Kahneman, he describes an office experiment;

In a cafeteria of a office where you get coffee and some light snack, it was 

 when a picture of flowers is kept on top the employees who have to pay by their own choice! That means you can choose to pay what you want! 

Just before the place where you place your money, there was a provision of placing a large photo! The photos used to change everyday and one day it was just the photo or painting of eyes! and the other day it was some random inanimate object like flowers or houses! 

The interesting thing is that the days which had the photos of the eye, the employees ended up paying more than the days with no eyes! Now remember that there is no camera and no one to actually see or judge!

But the eyes raise some emotion or concern which makes them more oriented to pay! For some it could be guilt but finally it is the motivator we talked about earlier!

In fact, even in most traffic signals, people have been seen to follow the traffic rules more faithfully when there is a CCTV nearby! Now, here also no one knows whether those cameras work or not! But the motivation is strong!

The same thing is when you see a police person nearby is akin to a student who sees his or her teacher or Principal nearby and starts acting nice or decent!

Though ideally it should not be the biggest motivation, unfortunately, from getting up in the morning to sleeping in the night and sometimes when it does not allow you to sleep, this is the greatest motivator! 

A simple four letter word called, FEAR!

Now if you like FPS games like me there is an amazing FPS game called FEAR but this blog is about the literal fear and not the acronym!

Not only in real life, there is also a type of software which uses fear to make you do something or buy something! Just when you thought AI cannot be that Human (though in some cases they may be more humane than most!); there is a malware which uses social engineering to cause shock, anxiety, or the perception of a threat in order to manipulate users into buying unwanted software.

Deservedly and aptly the software is called SCAREWARE! 

Scareware is actually a big group which includes rogue security software, ransomware and other scam software that tricks users into believing their computer is infected with a virus, then suggests that they download and pay for fake antivirus software to remove it!

The “scareware” label can also apply to any application or virus which pranks users with intent to cause anxiety or panic! 

Of course the fear may be unreal but if acted upon the impact is more malicious. Scareware that installs intentionally malicious software on a victim’s device cloud can spy on users; steal personally identifiable information; steal credit card or bank account details; deploy more financial fraud or identity theft software; lock up the user’s computer and demand a ransom, destroying the files if not paid and even offer fake tech support to con more money out of the victim! Gone are the days of making songs and taking your money! Nowadays they scare you and make you pay for your own money without shedding a tear or singing a song! Songs reminds me of the dear Birthday Celebrity of the day Gulshan Kumar Dua! I used to love his cute smiling face on the TV when he used to do the guest appearance in his songs! He was gone to soon; guess he did not give in to the fear. He will be missed, his role in bringing some of the greatest hindi music is incomparable!

Now listen to some soft songs of Gulshan’s movies like Sadak or Ashiqui and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

The super creepy being!

“He was little but that did not stop him!

He ran towards the big elephant nay a care!

He did not have to worry cause he was an ant!

Forget elephant, even the tiger he wouldn’t spare!”

There are people who like the creepiest things in the world but I am sure they would not like this! They could very well be one of the most resilient beings in the world! I am sure that they were around with the Dinosaurs and I am sure they will survive even another big bang! 

You can find them in the remotest places and you can find them in the most populated ones! From ancient to the most modern, there have been so many devices and chemicals invented to get rid of them but take it from me, you cannot get rid of them! They will lay low for a while and come back with a vengeance! 

I am sure that even the most Heartful guy or gal would immediately pounce on them or crush them without a thought!

I am also sure that if a human does go to Mars, you will find a colony of them there happily munching on some martian rocks!

It has been said that these creatures can live without their heads for one week! Now all those who say knowledge is important can bow their intact heads in shame!

Apparently when you think or investigate them you would find that they are more close to humans in that they also have chambers in their heart!

And their heart (rate!) is close to ours! 

You may be scared of your wife but the only thing they may be scared of maybe these creepy things! Find them in your food in a hotel and you may get the food for free! But then you may not like to eat it!

They even have amazing latin names like Americana and Germania! 

Yes! 

The humble (??) Cockroach! 

It has actually been found that a cockroach can live up to a week without its head! Cockroaches are mainly nocturnal and will run away from light. 

Now remember how you were fasting the other day and felt good about it!? Well, cockroaches are tougher! They can live up to three months without food and a month without water! I do not think its humanly possible to beat that!

Now if you want to drown them these can put Phelps to shame! These pests can even survive being submerged under water for half an hour! They hold their breath often to help regulate their loss of water! Time for the swimming coaches to learn something new!

By the way they do not mind a drink! Apparently a cockroach species is drawn to some alcoholic beverages, especially beer! They are most likely attracted by the hops and sugar present in the drink or they get a high! Now what is the truth that, Hic! We may never know!

And talk about ancestry, it is believed that cockroaches originated more than 280 million years ago in the Carboniferous era! Also if you are terrified of the small roaches then you must avoid this place in South America where this species also has a one-foot wingspan! Now that is big! Big also is the legacy of Balraj Sahni the birthday celebrity of the day!

Now confirm the pest control appointment for tomorrow and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

Eat and wink!

“Will smith shot the kid not giving a hoot!

Agents all over shocked right to the boot!

He simply said I gave the kid some lemon

He didn’t squint! Now that’s surely a demon!”

If you meet a man or woman who does not wink or squint while eating the first sour green mango of the season especially without salt then he or she may most definitely be either an alien or a robot!

The best and tastiest memories of raw mangoes I had was when my mother used to cut them into long slice and put salt and red chili powder and put a tempering of mustard and oil on them! They were so good but you cannot eat them in a gulp! Only some pieces at a time and that too with frequent breaks in between! Then some curd rice since Mom told us not to drink water when we ate mango! I still follow that without any reason! Even the mangos we used to get at the road side which had the red and white powder were so tasty! The famous Totapuri mango which were a little sweet and sour may be the only mangoes you could eat without a wink! 

Apple was introduced much later though since we were in Jammu, it was also a big fad especially the red ones but I do not remember eating them! But my mother always used to tell about the Kashmiri apples which were supposedly as sweet as sugar! 

Now there are two kinds of Apple eaters apparently! The ones who eat the red ones and those who eat the greens! I like the red one since the green ones are usually sour and since I am allergic, it is better to avoid any sour stuff! The green apples though are a hit all over the world and in case you did not know, they are called Granny Smith apples! 

And yes! They are named after an actual Grand mother Smith! Unfortunately she was no longer around when these apples became famous of got named after her!

Read on!

So the original ‘Granny’ Maria Sherwood was born in 1799 in Sussex, England. In 1819, she married farm laborer Thomas Smith, and changed her name to Maria Smith. Together, they migrated to Ryde, Australia and bought 24 acres of land! 

One day in 1868, Maria discarded the peels and seeds from a box of French crab apples she had purchased at the market. She threw them onto a compost heap near a creek on their farm. Some months later, she noticed a little tree growing from the pile. 

She tended to it, and eventually it bore – not red apples – but green apples! She took care of the tree until the day she died in 1870, at the age of 71 without knowing or being aware of the fact that her tree and the green apples would one day be famous all over the world!

Finally several years later, an orchardist named Edward Gallard bought part of the Smith farm. He noticed this unusual tree and its green apples, and developed the seedling into an orchard!

As it turned out, the trees weren’t French crab apple trees. They appeared to be producing a brand new hybrid variety – a cross between a crab apple and a Cleopatra apple. 

So Gallard who was a truthful guy decided to name the fruit the “Granny Smith,” in honour of the little old lady who first cultivated it! This is so opposite to the usual credit hungry Homo Sapien! We must also appreciate Gallard for this! So anyway they were marketed and pretty soon became pretty famous and continue to do so even now! Some legacies live on long after people are gone just like the legacy of Manna Dey! One of my best sketches of him which probably reflects my respect for his skill!

Now have some sweet or sour apple and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

Jack of all trades! King of a ton!

“She takes the charge from day one!

Her sacrifices and her work stands tall

She is the mother the Jack of all trades! 

And also the queen of them all!”

In a famous song, The big B Says how when you curse us it feels like blessing while when we bless you, it feels like curse! The essence there was rich and poor while it is understood that the curse or blessing is dependent on the relationship between the giver and taker! If they are good friends and cordial to each other then keeping other things aside, it is understood that among friends any wishes is blessing and among enemies, any interaction even if it is soft seems like curse!

In the same way some people can mistake a complement to be a curse or sarcasm because in this day and age, people take more pleasure in criticism than praise! The age of true praise is dwindling and anyone who praises is seen with doubtful eyes! 

In that same way one of the biggest praise of yesteryears is now seen as a curse or not a compliment especially if you are good are many things! 

Now If you are a person with a multitude of interests and passions and have the undying urge to explore new things and acquire more knowledge and different skills. If you want to do many things at a time and try to practice to excel in them then instead of praise you are sure to get a critical assesment!

You will be called “jack of all trades but master of none!”

It is a great defence for the narrow minded person to give a insult in form of a compliment! The fact that someone tries to do many things must actually be an inspiration for everyone to get out there and do more stuff! If you stop and start comparing then you will never get anywhere! Once you realise that there always be someone who can do better than you, then you must try to do stuff different or with more variety that him or her! So if you sketch well but someone can do better then write a blog and if someone is a better blogger than you then write a poem and you get the drift!! 

Then the only competition you would have would be with yourself! 

Now coming to this popular saying, it was initially meant to be a compliment!

Let us see how! 

So the phrase dates back to the 14th century. At this time, the name Jack was typically used to describe an ordinary man. An example of this can be found in John Gower’s Middle English poem Confessio Amantis (1390).

“They seie, ‘A good felawe is Jacke’.”

It is said that these people were working-class and often had to supplement their meagre income by doing other jobs. For example, a builder would supplement his income by painting or farming. Thus, they were not particularly good at the extra jobs that they took on but they were good in one job and doing extra ones as a complimentary work!

So it could have meant that Jack was good in one work and not an expert in other work but still manageable!

The first places where the phrase was recorded was in Robert Greene’s 1592 booklet Greene’s Groats-Worth of Wit, where he refers to William Shakespeare as a “jack of all trades”! 

This was because he worked on sets of plays and learned all of the jobs and roles that he could and would fill in wherever he was needed! And he used the area as his learning ground and became one of the most well-known playwrights in history! So he was expert in all! A compliment!

In fact Jack and Cracker if mixed together actually means an expert!

So someone who’s a crackerjack is really good at what they do. Like a crackerjack of a magician will amaze you with every trick he or she performs.

In fact the word can be used for any excellent thing or person — you might say, for example, that your new car is a crackerjack or compliment your friend on her crackerjack of a performance at the school talent show! 

Now no one knows how the compliment became an insult but still if someone calls you a Jack of all trades then it is up to YOU to take it as a compliment or an insult because the person who says it may not realise the effort and dedication it takes to learn or do multiple things consistently and properly! The jack of all Trades as a compliment reminds me of this family of M S swaminathan who was responsible for the green revolution and his daughter and Birthday celebrity Soumya Swaminathan!

Now show your expertise in sleep!

Shubh ratri!

Peter Principle! Are you competent or successful!?

Peter principle by Laurence J. Peter and R Suttton!

Ebook and a very interesting concept! Now of course the book is written by someone called Peter though like Murphy’s law it could be the father or the son!

Even here like Murphy’s laws you have a back story since the original Peter Principle was like a series of articles based on the thoughts of Dr Peter who emphasized it on Lewis Sutton who is the father of R Sutton! This was because the Peter Principal came as an epiphany to L Sutton one fine day!That is the forward!

Now do not get overwhelmed! It is interesting and funny in a dark humour kind of way!

So in case you are planning to read the book then this is a preview only and if you do not want to read it then this is a summary of the relevant points!

The basic principle is that everyone in an organization reaches to his or her own level of incompetence and peaks!

Imagine a cricketer who is a great batsman, he or she would be promoted higher up the order and finally may even be made the captain! But it is seen that as he or she gets promoted higher and higher, he or she will finally reach a position where he or she will actually underperform!

Even in an office, you can have a person who is doing a great job at entry level! Then as and when he or she is promoted, he or she will reach a peak and then he or she will get a job in which he or she may not do a good job!

It is like the credit card scam! Your credit limit is at first a very low but easily achievable limit! You are then given an option to slowly and steadily increase your spending limit! Till you reach a point when you can no longer pay the limit! That is when they pounce on you!

Even in government jobs it is seen that a person who has been appointed because of a certain skill is given more and more responsibilities but then finally it will reach a point when the work suffers and how!

A person is good in a job then he is promoted to a better position till he or she reaches a plateau! or actually starts performing worse at the elevated position!

These are examples of Peter Principle which actually notes that every employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence! It actually concludes that every job in a hierarchical organization will be filled by a person who is incompetent!

The Peter principle hence states that a person who is competent at their job will earn a promotion to a position that requires different skills. If the promoted person lacks the skills required for the new role, they will be incompetent at the new level, and will not be promoted again.
If the person is competent in the new role, they will be promoted again and will continue to be promoted until reaching a level at which they are incompetent. Being incompetent, the individual will not qualify for promotion again, and so will remain stuck at this final placement or Peter’s plateau!

This outcome is inevitable, given enough time and enough positions in the hierarchy to which competent employees may be promoted. The Peter principle is therefore expressed as: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
This leads to Peter’s corollary: “In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.”

Which means that everyone does a primary job well as he or she is supposed to do! Later on they are given added responsibility and with each step they do the work well till they are promoted and given more and more responsibility till the time they reach a point when the work is incompetent! That is the stopping point! The Horror is that this applies to the managers of big firms and the officials in a government place! So the chief and the heads are actually reached point in which they are actually incompetent!

A solution has been suggested by the author that the person in such a position must be offered the position just one level below the current position and he or she will be competent in that!


Larger the hierarchy the easier the lateral arabesque or pseudo promotion! The incompetent employee is given a longer title and moved to a office in a remote part of the building with the Same salary or maybe a little hike! !

Case of levitation! Director with a huge salary but no one to manage! Suspended without a base to support! He is given a big job with office and perks but shunted to a place where he cannot disturb anyone!


Peter tells the story of Michael Patrick O Brien who was kept for 11 months on a ferry boat plying between Hong Kong and Macao because of a travel issue!

This leads to another interesting phenomenon especially in the Government sector! There are some forms which serve no purpose other than waste time energy and money! But incompetent officers insist on it because of customary routine! Like the case of Michael above!

The above are examples of Professional Automatism! Means are more important than the end! The paperwork is more important than the purpose!
But most of the time even if they don’t do any work, professional automatism still gets them promoted! In fact if you question or do not get with the flow, then you are not given any promotion! Here competence is harmful!

It was shown with a great example of a temporary teacher!
Probationer-teacher C. Cleary’s first teaching assignment was to a special class of retarded children. Although he had been warned that these children would not accomplish very much, he proceeded to teach them all he could. By the end of the year, many of Cleary’s retarded children scored better on standardized achievement tests of reading and arithmetic than did children in regular classes!
When Cleary received his dismissal notice he was told that he had grossly neglected the bead stringing, sandbox and other busy-work which were the things that retarded children should do. He had failed to make adequate use of the modelling clay, pegboards and finger paints!
If the whole company is incompetent then your competency is your curse!

Which made the author comment that Super competence is more objectionable than incompetence!

Of course the whole book is just an extension of the first chapter and ironically that was the most competent chapter and the author should have stopped there! He did not do it but still the book manages to hold your attention for a while with some notes and comments which I have enumerated…

The author states that there are three classes of workers the incompetent, moderately competent and competent!

The supers in both sides are liable to be dismissed!

Finishing your project within the budget is always bad! If you have any hope of getting a raise the next time make sure that your budget is spent! This is of course a known phenomenon! Do not be too competent is the key!

Examples of different types of incompetence like physical social emotional and mental! All with examples mainly of managers where even the appointing of assistants did not solve the problems!

Over some time though the author gets into his own brain and starts teaching doctors that many problems such as anxiety acidity and depression and many many more are due to a condition invented by him! On top of that the author is frustrated that the medical community does not recognise it!

Then in one chapter the author goes into naming syndrome and phobia and Philia mode! Naming things like compulsive alternation and the teeter totter syndrome! There is a whole list of things which he goes over drive in naming and giving definitions but like I mentioned before the essence is the same! The first chapter is the peak!

Many of the things he says he gives examples of some manager who did that and got nowhere and that makes for interesting stories! Now the stories are nice but repetitive!

Also how superiors treated subordinates and colleagues by body shaming subconsciously! Like how Napoleon towards his later years gave promotion only those with long nose!

All in all a good book to leaf through and if you are interested you can read it or you can just read my summary and the first chapter and you will get more than 80 percent of the essence of the book!

Now that is competence!

Behind every successful man!

“He stood on the dias beeming with pride!

It was difficult but boy! what a ride!

The greatest achievement of his life!

He the lucky groom, she his clever bride!”

As the saying goes, behind every Successful man there is a woman! Historically apparently even that phrase is not accurate! Now of course the phrase has its roots in the idea that women often provide support, encouragement, and inspiration to the men in their lives. Historically, women were often responsible for managing households and providing emotional support to their husbands, allowing them to focus on their careers or other pursuits.

The actual phrase used many years ago was that, “Behind every successful man, There is s STRONG woman!”

I guess putting the prefix Strong for woman is not needed since they are naturally strong and here the strength is emotions and mental!

Now there is an invention by man but made famous by a woman! So much so that it was featured in a famous movie on a wonder of the world! Whew!

Read on! 

During World War II, an engineer named Richard James wanted to help the troops by inventing springs that could stabilize important instruments on naval ships during times of rough seas. While working on the springs, one was knocked off a table and “walked” its way down to the floor, then re-coiled itself and stood upright!

Does that ring a bell!?

Those fairs you used to go when you were young (er!) and that spring toy made either of plastic or metal? 

Of course it would work so well in the fair but the moment you get it in your home and play with it for a couple of days, am sure it would have got entangled and gone for good!

I cannot even count the number of such toys which were Fair purchases and turned out to be silly and costly afFAIRS!

So to continue the story!

Richard went home and did not think too much about it! But he did the more intelligent thing which every husband must do! Show the device to his wife! Or at least ask for her opinion! Even the first critic or reader of my sketches and blogs is my wife! Only when she identifies the person in the sketch do I go ahead and post! The blog does not need any approval (for now!)

So he told that how a loose coil of wire that had been accidentally dropped appeared to walk! And he thought and told her that it that looks pretty fun!

The ever supporting wife, Betty also like it! Now since it was slimy and may be a little kinked! We do not know the actual reason why she named it thus and that is not important! So anyway she called it Slinky!

It was first demonstrated to customers at Gimbels Department Store in 1945, and within the first 90 minutes over 400 Slinkys had been sold!

Yes! That famous spring toy we all loved to play with albeit for some time and the one which was featured in Jim Carrey’s movie Ace Ventura as coming down the steps of the Great Wall of China!

Of course Betty later on became the president and has always kept the toy’s price low so children could buy it! It originally sold for $1. Slinky has received many toy industry awards and honors over the years. Its television jingle is the longest running jingle in advertising history! Another industrial Giant with many awards under his name is birthday celebrity Anand Gopal Mahindra! 

Now control your urge to play with Slinky and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!