Opportunity

You may have heard these stories before. If so, please bear with me. 3 stories. 

There was a new news reporter. First day on the job. It was that country’s independence day celebrations. The Editor asked him to cover the independent day celebrations on one of their aircraft carrier ship. The reporter goes there. There was a huge fire. Half the ship was destroyed. He comes back and told the Editor that there was no news to report because the Independent day celebrations were cancelled. 

Editor told him the fire on the aircraft carrier was the biggest national and international news. And this idiot did not grab the opportunity to cover that. 

There was a shoe company. The owner sent one of his sales managers to an African country to find out if his company has any opportunity there. He goes there and comes back and said no one in that country is wearing a shoe and therefore we don’t have an opportunity. 

He sends another sales manager to the same country. He goes there and comes back and said no one in that country is wearing a shoe and therefore we have lot of opportunity to sell shoes to all of them.

The above 2 examples may be fiction. But the following really happened. 

A female TV reporter in Seattle went to the Bill Gates’ home to interview him. During the interview, the reporter asked him the secret behind his being rich. Bill thought for 3 minutes before answering her. 

He then gave her his personal check book and asked her to write her name and fill up any amount she wanted to in that check and he will sign. The reporter thought it was a joke and said I didn’t mean that. I asked you a question and want an answer. Bill Gates repeated a second time asking her to write her name and fill up any amount. The reporter again did not do that. 

Mr. Gates took his check book back from her. And he said: You could have walked out of my home as the richest TV reporter in Seattle. I gave an opportunity and you did not grab. The reason I am rich because I do not miss an opportunity that is presented to me.

Kannadasan Poem

Kannadasan was an atheist and later became a believer. I remember he wrote the following lines in a poem:

I was an atheist.
But He was not afraid of me.
I became a believer.
But I cannot find Him.

I recently had a chance to read a poem in Tamil written by Late Kannadasan. I thought I would translate that. But, of course, we cannot convey the real meaning of the words from the original language into a translated language. OK, here is the translation of that poem.

Are you afraid? Are you agitated?
Is your mind distressed?
Turbulence in life?
Thousand things will happen in life.
Tragedy in almost all entrances.
Whatever may be the cause of suffering
Just worrying will not make them go away.
If you have a heart to bear anything.
You will have peace of mind until the end.
Make the poor mind a big mansion.
Compose poem day and night.
And Dedicate all days from tomorrow to God.
And find peace for the rest of your life.
There are millions of people suffer more than you.
Think of that and seek content.

I think Kannadasan covered almost the whole Bhagvat Geetha in this one poem. We all know Bhagvat Geetha says:

Stabilize your mind.
Do your duty with detachment.
Surrender to God.

Plane Travel During Covid-19

Last week I was travelling from Durham, North Carolina to Oakland, California, via Nashville, Tennessee. These are my observations: 

Durham Airport 

Highly recommended that all people (passengers, airline crew, and airport workers) wear a mask and a glove at the airport. Only about 20% of the passengers wore a mask. All airline crew wore a mask. All airport workers wore a mask and gloves. No passenger, except one idiot, wore gloves. That was me. 

Nashville Airport

Same story as in Durham Airport. 

Inside the Aircraft 

All passengers were seated either in the window seat or aisle seat. Middle seats were kept vacant. Flight Stewards were lucky. During this Covid stuff, passengers will not be served any coffee or tea or soft drinks or alcohol or food. Only purified drinking water. However, the airline I traveled served us snacks along with water. 

Flying time Durham to Nashville is one hour and ten minutes. Nashville to Oakland is 4 hours and 25 minutes. Boring flights. No one spoke to other passengers. 

Oakland Airport 

Highly recommended that all people (passengers, airline crew, and airport workers) wear a mask and a glove at the airport. Everyone was wearing a mask. No one except airport workers wore gloves. 

Taking Advantage of the Situation 

Airlines. Stopped providing coffee, tea, and soft drinks. But did not reduce the price. 

Restaurants. There is an Indian restaurant in our area. Their lunch package includes rice, naan, 2 side dishes (veg or non veg), salad, sweet, raita, and pickle. I went there yesterday to take out a lunch package. Price is the same. But no salad, sweet, raita, and pickle. I asked the guy why these items were not included. He said corona virus. I asked him the connection between these 4 and the corona virus. He did not reply. Only the Indian smile. 

Charity scam. Got couple of calls for donations. Some total stranger, out of the blue, asking for money over the phone? No way.

Hoarding,  50% of the shelves in any departmental store are empty.