Idhar Udhar Ki Baat

  “I can’t find my passport photo,” I said, after wasting a good ten minutes digging through my phone to upload it on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit registration app. “Just take a selfie and upload it,” my son said casually. And just like that, the registration was done. I made a mental note: Remember to take off your blinkers while thinking. After all, you’re visiting an AI summit. The first stall I visited claimed it could automatically detect and resolve fraud in banking transactions. “So even then, is it possible AI might miss something?” I asked in my best sceptical tone. The young chap looked at me as if I had just asked whether the sun rises in the west, but he patiently began explaining the safeguards. By then, my brain had quietly switched to standby mode. This had happened before—ten years ago, when a junior officer tried to explain that automation had made physical registers unnecessary. I was in full CYA (Cover Your Ass) mode then. “But how will the book inspec...

 “You know, a very obese man once died,” the old man began casually, as if recalling a village anecdote. “And the task of finding solution to lift the body was given to Tipu Gothra. No one seemed to know—or perhaps no one cared—that Tipu Gothra suffered from cerebral palsy. After hours of deep ‘analysis’, his brilliant recommendation was that the pubic hair of the dead man be shaved off.” The ex-fauji raised an eyebrow. “What else could he have suggested? A dead man’s weight doesn’t reduce with ideas. And anyway, why are you even bringing this up?” “Oh, I forgot to mention,” the old man added with mock innocence, “Tipu Gothra was also an ex-fauji, just like you. The task was to design a device or some clever improvisation to lift the body—without magically reducing its weight. I remembered this story because these days everyone is talking about something called ‘taxing disability’.” “Yes,” the ex-fauji nodded. “That’s to prevent misuse of facilities by some people.” The ol...

“ Papa kya garibon wali batein karte ho!(Papa, you talk like a poor man!)”    My son threw this line at me when I mentioned that  at a dinner our host had slipped a ₹500 note as a tip to the waiters.     Now, there were only four of us at the table.    It wasn’t a big party, and the service was nothing to write home about.    The tip felt less like generosity and more like a performance—perhaps to impress the waiter, perhaps to impress us. Or maybe just to impress himself.      I have a congenital defect : I feel physical discomfort when I see money being wasted—by anyone.     My family groans every time I ask the waiter to pack the excess food we ordered.     They look at me as if I’m a source of insulting them in the eyes of public.     A few days ago, I took a ride in a friend’s car worth over ₹90 lakhs.     When he casually mentioned that the vehicle has to be sent 300 kilometres away...