Most meaningful advices:

Advices are the easiest things. They come to you unsolicited. Often, they are useless. 

They run along the lines of

“Be good to everyone”

“Taste the words before you spit them out”

“Do unto others what you…”

“Respect everyone”

And yada yada yada. Plus, you have all those self-help books that teaches you how to keep friends, influence them, not give a fuck, keep the home tidy, the garden trim, mind free and virtually every miracle that is conceivable.

And we know, none of them ever help.

So, here are the meaningful, results guaranteed advices that are relevant to and in your life.

Never lend your book

If you are observant, you would always hear people saying “I had a library”

Had. Not have! Past tense.

The library loses weight at a rate that you would love to lose it yourself. A library is an inanimate thing. It does not make its own decisions. You, the moron, do.

Everyone can lend a book. Only a certified idiot expects that it will come back. If you want your book , do not lend it in the first place.

It is not that the lendee of your book is cheap or is making some pleasure/money out of keeping your book away from you.

It is just that those who borrow books, do not usually return.

They start and do not complete.

Or, they start and take so long to finish that they forget where they borrowed it from.

Or, there is a misunderstanding. You think you have loaned it. They think they have taken it.

Or, someone else borrowed it from them.

Possibilities abound, combinations are multitude.

In my life I have bought 3 copies of The Little Prince, 5 copies of Animal farm, 2 copies of Sapiens, 3 copies of Catch-22, 2 copies of The world according to Garp, 3 copies of The old man and the Sea.

And guess what!

Right now, I do not have a single copy of any of them.

On the other hand, I have bought Ulysses only once and NO ONE wants it.

Only one thing is certain. A book lent is like a bullet fired. It does not return.

How to eat groundnuts:

Groundnuts were one of the most popular snacks during our childhood. It continues to be one even today. Boiled, roasted, fried with a coating of breadcrumbs or a paste of lentil. Spiced or salted or plain. Whatever its avatar, there is one thing that is universally binding. It is a cosmic law. Qualifies to become a Murphy’s law, if only Murphy had ever munched as many groundnuts as we did in our childhood. The law is this.

“The last groundnut that you eat will always be the rotten one”

There you are content with the endless travel of hand to mouth, slowly depleting the stock of the groundnuts, eyes trained on the TV or engrossed in the book or simply ogling at pretty young things in the vicinity and

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK

The last rotten piece had been bitten into, its sour juicy taste soiling every taste bud in your mouth and there is nothing you can do to get rid of that horrible taste unless you start on the next handful of good groundnuts.

Usually you will not find one. One usually buys only one pack. The next pack is not normally available for a replenishment. The only thing one can usually do is to drink water, assuming that water is available nearby. And trust me, water CAN NOT remove that horrible taste.

ONLY few more good groundnuts can undo the damage.

Therein lies the moral and the guide.

Before you start with any pack of groundnuts, always select and keep aside five or six of the good pieces on visual inspection and then start with the heap.

Never fails.

How to travel by train.

We often need to travel by train. With IRCTC making the train reservation so simple, we must use one of the facilities available to make our journey comfortable.

While we are booking, assuming that it is an overnight journey, we could choose our berth. The most foolish of us all, will end up choosing lower berth.

Unbeatable logic.

It is easy and convenient. You do not need to contort like a Moslem offering  his prayer before entering your middle berth, you do not have to be a trapeze artist to climb to the top berth (and then behave like a Moslem offering his prayer…) and you do not have to curl into a foetal position to accommodate in one of those shorter side berths.

Except in real life it does not play out that way.

The first problem in choosing the lower berth is that you CAN NOT sleep till everyone else has decided to sleep.

The second problem is that you CAN NOT even sit if the middle berth guy decides to sleep. How many mornings have I continued to lie down, even when I wanted to sit and read something, ONLY because the middle berth guy/gal was still deep in his/her sleep.

These are at least consequential inconveniences assuming that you get to sleep in the lower berth.

In 100% of the cases, you will be approached by someone who is travelling with a 70 or 80 year old woman and “would you be so kind to exchange your berth for this old woman?” and “do not worry sir, I will bring your luggage to the new position, oh! You are so kind, thanks” and then you move to berth number 69.

For the uninitiated berth number 69 is the middle berth adjoining the toilet!

The best thing you can do is choose the SUB, the acronym for side upper berth. 

You climb up there and it is your kingdom.

NO ONE disturbs you there. You can sit during the night, sleep during the day, have your meal there and no one passes you by on the way to/from toilet.

Never speak for your children

You know your child well.

Right?

Wrong.

Never ever speak on behalf of your children.

My daughter is not fond of sweets. The sweets made at home are never consumed. We went on a dinner invitation. The food was served. And when it was time for desserts, I told my host that my daughter does not like sweets.

She had three plates of what was offered and asked a fourth portion to be packed for home “if you do not mind please?”

The hostess was of course not minding while casting a look in my direction while I tried to blend into the wallpaper.

Keep your kitten quiet

Those who have had kitten in their home would know what an impossible task it is. They are a bundle of energy. They jump on you when you try to sleep. Pull your hair, shred your finer silks, unspool a yarn, drop fragile things, climb on to impossible places and go Meow till you manage to bring it down, get inside a bottle and act as if it can’t get out, puncture your pillow, scratch a good linoleum top, in general create mayhem.

Unlike dogs, they do not listen to your commands or treats. They take what they want, go where they want, do what they want and finally want YOU to do what they want.

To keep one of those energetic ones, sit in a corner and mind its own business (in its head its business is to trouble you) is unthinkable.

Till my brother came along.

My elder brother was reduced to tears, begging on his knees, seeking few minutes of sleep that he desperately needed. The cat did not bother. It went about with a threatening determination that was bordering on maniacal with a single purpose of trying to get inside his vest and sleep on my brother’s tummy, scratching him with razor sharp claws.

Enter my eldest brother. He took the cat to the kitchen, applied Ghee (clarified butter) on its nose and left him alone.

The transformation was magnificent. The cat lost all its other focus. It had only one purpose. Take the left paw, wipe its nose, lick it clean, wipe its nose, lick it clean, ……….

The lingering smell of the Ghee misled the cat to assume that the nose was not completely clean, and we were witness to this cat at this routine for 12 hours without any stop.

Now whenever anyone in the family wanted freedom from the persistent cat, it was just a dollop of Ghee away!

And I am keeping the best for the last.

Where to sleep when alone:

My cousin, who is no more, gave this most fabulous of all advices when I was 7 year old. Let the impressionable age not steal the inherent grand wisdom embedded in this most original of them all.

“When you are alone in your home, always sleep closer to the front door”

Like all profound wisdom, this one too needed an elaboration.

“Why is that?” I asked in all earnestness that only a 7-year old could summon.

“It is quite possible, that the house could be broken into. A thief targeting a night with no activities during the day is the professional secret amongst break ins. A thief, having monitored the house all day long, will most probably attempt a break in during the night. No thief worth his salt, will ever break in through the front door. He will always make his entry through the tiled roof or through one of the windows”

I was dense. 

Still am, that is immaterial.

“How will that help if I am closer to the front door? How does it equip me to stand against him or hold him back?”

“Are you NUTS? Why will you even nurse such a thought? God forbid!” Here he crossed himself despite being a Brahmin.

“You just open the door and run away – no point in any heroism. Return with help or after the thief had left”

I sleep in the living room with the front door just a jump and run away, even today!

Even when I am not alone