Adaptations

My daughter's pet peeve about me is that I plan at the drop of a hat.

During my busy official days, when I started looking at the tasks for weekends on Friday evenings , she used to come hounding at me for compartmentalizing the weekend, rather than enjoying it.

I am now used to getting up early, sometimes as early as 5 AM and go for a morning walk to return before the sun is up. I enjoy this brisk walk, on the cool shore of Marina with enchanting music on my Ipod so much that I have started looking for it.

Few hours back when I got up , I rushed with my chores not wanting to be late and get beaten by the sun. When I anxiously gunned my car towards Santhome high road, it was flagged down for some diversions. To beat the obstruction, I took an early left and tried approaching it from a different direction, only to be waved down again by some brisk Khaki & white cops, to apprise that a marathon run has just started and traffic will not be allowed until 9 near the beach. My programmed mind quickly swallowed the disappointment of missing the Marina today and looked for an alternative.

In no time, I was at the green covered Nageswara Rao park, not far away from Mylapore and I resumed my day's walk there. The chill of the dawn aided by last night's rain and the lush greens of the park pepped me up and I happily switched on  P.B.Srinivas songs loaded yesterday after setting off the 'RunKeeper' app. After a round of walk the app announced that I have walked for five minutes and the distance covered was 'zero' kilometers. I paused a while to reset the settings but realizing that it was not responding, I resumed the walk swallowing my planned activities for the second time within an hour of waking up.

After a couple of rounds of walk I slowed down to inquire about people assembling at a point to be informed that the park organizes a 'mikeless kutchery' every first Sunday of the month and encourage mostly school going children to perform. Appreciating the wonderful gesture of the sponsors Sundaram Finance I continued my walk and a free copy of a Daily distributed to all visitors coupled with a green, cool environ urged me to sit and I started browsing through the paper, even before the completion of my regular walking duration.

While I was enjoying the news and the young voice singing Vathapi Ganapathim to the accompaniment of Mridangam and violin, yesterday's rain slowly reared its head to the annoyance of all especially the parents and well wishers of the young performer. While the scant audience of relatives and walkers started looking for cover, the young artiste was deep into his aalap with closed eyes not minding the falling drops and never aware of the audience scurrying for cover.

When he finished the song and started preparing for the next rendition, there were no disturbances in his voice or eyes and he was only too focused. Rain or shine the kid was determined to sing today and has left the worries to other organizers and continued his performance.

There seemed to be a lesson the young chap had delivered. I will tell my daughter that I agree with her opinion, when she wakes up !

Never mind the tenets of quality "If you fail to plan you are planning to fail".

What to Do?

Some months back I took against a bank hard for having charged me unfairly in my Cash credit account and were after them through all ethical means until I got the charges reversed. As is with me, I promptly sent a message to the Manager thanking him, though there was nothing to thank them as I had to make couple of repeated calls to remind them to do so. I felt this is how I should close the issue, so that they don't accuse me of not having informed them when the interest was reversed while I was always after them for this. But , to my disbelief, I got the same wrong debit reversed again ! Which means they have over paid me.

The same situation happened to me (I don't know why its me always at the receiving end- pun intended) again when a popular cinema hall charged me for an online transaction but failed to deliver the service. After I took up with the Credit card provider and also the Theatre , I got the wrong debit reversed - this time also twice !

While I promptly informed both these parties about the double credit, it still remain un-reversed even after a month ! Now I am in a dilemma what to do - whether to keep reminding them or keep cool with unexpected bounty- though small they are ! I do not want to be accused of sharp practice as  was done to the great Mahatma when he pointed out a wrong entry in his client's account, which argument made his client lose the case ! At the same time time, I would like to wait and see as to how their accounting system detects this or test the efficiency of their audit system against leakage of income.

I am at the crossroads of a middle class dilemma. If some one could guide me on this, I will credit them with lots of good wishes, even twice !!