Morning Walk

 I was walking beside a lake. The pathway is lined with crotons. Banana Crotons predominantly. There was a guy, strange looking, walking his dog. He had a bushy beard and his labret piercing was so big to be overlooked. He looked exhausted. He was wearing a dark brown jumper. The shirt is soft cream with a raised collar like mandarin. It wasn't that cold. Clothing was neatly pressed and tidy as well. The ivory cretan hound was giving me a hostile look. It was gasping. There was a wire running from his pocket to his ear. As we crossed, he gave a quick nod of greeting. I acknowledged. I turned back to have a glance. He had a "T" embroidered on the back about 8 inches tall. I tried to make an educated guess of his job. 

 So I activated the time machine and rewinded back four minutes. It is so funny to see the dog walking backwards now wagging the tail in opposite direction. Whirr, the time machine stopped. 

 As I approached the bearded guy, started giving full attention to him from head to the toe. He is medium build. He had dark circles around his eyes. Possibly he should be working with computers. He turned back and looked at the girl walking in front of me. That wasn't subtle. He was clutching a book in his left hand, and holding the leash. I could only see part of the book. The first line read "THE IMM....." and the second line "MEL...". In the quick jerk, noticed a trident in the center of the book. I couldn't guess the book name.  It should be a 500 pages book. There was a scar on the base of his palm about one inch, probably a carpal tunnel scar. He might be a software engineer or a writer may be. I felt humiliated and subdued as I was glancing back at his "T".

Don't pass OCD to your Kids

        I was bit uneasy to write about OCD as I myself have some of it which of course I wouldn't be sharing here. I don't want my friends to know about them and judge me. Having OCD is not a disease. Right? By the way, for those who have no idea what OCD means - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I know a friend who parks his car exactly in the same spot in office everyday. If for some reason the spot is taken, he would walk down to the parking spot during lunch hour and evening hours to check if it is free. I know this because I observed, found a pattern and stalked him few times. Smug Grin. Later I felt guilt though, hope that makes up for it. Well, let me confess one of my OCD. I am so much inclined to use "I" or "My" while writing emails. If I count "I" in this article, it is approximately 10 so far. That is irrational or bad writing. Will consciously avoid using these 2 words until the end of this article. Promise. 

The person who named this term didn't put much effort or thought. It is so obvious. He should learn from the person who coined the term Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Request you to complete this article before googling this long word, only few more lines and good part is yet to come. OCD is not bad always. If one is having obsession on cleanliness or perfection, it is good to some extent. There was one scene in "Friends" soap opera, the Monica character cleaning a bigger vacuum cleaner with a smaller one and saying "I wish I have even a smaller one to clean this one". That is one extreme of this disorder. Sometimes having these obsessions gives us a professional edge too. It is up to how we channelize those habits to our benefit. If you are cleaning your hands 7 times or checking the door lock 8 times or walking over the tiles without stepping on the lines, you are not alone. Without mentioning the previous line, any article on OCD is incomplete.

Coming to the essence it is parent's responsibility to identify it early before it onsets firmly. These are identifiable symptoms and care should be taken to handle it as early as possible. While enforcing the good habits to kids, make sure those don't become obsessions or compulsions. In front of your kid, while locking the door, don't pull the lock multiple times. Your kid is observing. Parents are the first people they observe and learn. Let us not pass our OCDs to next generations. Let us not teach our kids our OCDs.

Ethics

Ethics need not always assent to nature or morality as implied by its dictionary definition. Let us take an example, Teacher dating a student is considered unethical. It is frowned upon. It is unethical in the profession, the teaching profession. But, it is permissible in nature for them to fall in love genuinely. It is not immoral. Here morality & ethics contradict. Ethics is a disciplinary structure to govern an individual behavior in a group. Take another example, say a company restricts an employee to not accept a gift of more than Rs 500 from an external vendor. Assume you are the external vendor and you find two gifts one costing Rs 501 and you like it and another costing Rs 350 and not like it that much. What would you choose, former or the latter? Buying the Rs 501 gift is unethical as per the company but we "might" not call it immoral as per our conscience. To put a mathematical perspective, ethics is a discrete function , kind of quantifiable and also binary, whereas morality is a continuous function. If we take the range of Rs 500 to Rs 5000, where we fix the demarcation between moral and immoral figure varies from one individual to another.

But, a group (or company) can't survive without ethics, the mandatory standard. It makes the members conscious of their boundaries of what is right and what is wrong. They have to comply with it as long as one wish to stay with the group. It helps the group to remain in harmony and achieve the group objective. 

Ethical conflicts is one thing which any government would like to stay away especially if it touches upon human emotions or religion beliefs. If there is one thing which I would like to do last thing in this world would be making an amendment to constitution with regard to polygamy. Period.

The bottom line is the teacher has to relinquish in order to date his or her student.

Six Minutes

                   My stomach was rumbling as I parked the car under the fig tree. I looked at the radio, it was four minutes past nine. My mind kept fixating on that and couldn't let it go. First things first. Have to feed my growling stomach before it gets upset on me. Switched off the ignition and gave some rest to the piston and stepped off. Gosh, Rudolf is great! Wait, was it he, no no! Papin, Savery, Newcomen, Watt which one? I would need a time machine to verify it myself. I don't have time, already hydrochloric acid is eroding my gastric rugae and was feeling the burning sensation. As I walked by the alley I felt the cold breeze blowing rhythmically strong enough to blow my cap. It was not fully dark yet neither was moon visible. I recollected my Leo luck from the paper today. It said "you will meet with unpleasant surprises. Don't carry cash or jewellery". Man! bad timing to recollect. I pondered why this thought came now. Is it because I was looking for the moon. Brain is an amazing apparatus its recalling procedure is amazing. When I was in high school I used to reason memorizing is more difficult than anything in this world, nay, If you ask me now forgetting is the most difficult thing. My rumbling stomach reminded me to focus on walking and I was looking both sides to ensure my safety or the least be ready for a run. I could feel the uneven tiles through my loafers, who did they contract this to? what a bad job. I was seeing the wall in front of me, I've to take two rights before I can reach the restaurant door. I looked at the watch, it is 09:07. I kept the pace. I wanted to defocus fromthat. As I made the first right, I could smell the smoke. Two figures standing close were on a deep conversation with animations. Thank God! I slowed my pace.

                    I am feeling the chill inside my ears. As I approached them, pulled down my cap mask & pointed the 3.5 mm pistol at them. I heard "go ez go ez". Relieved them of their wallets and started running back to my car. I looked at the watch it is 09:10. Switched on the ignition and headed towards far away McDonald's.