Ramblings of an uncluttered mind

Something unthinkable happened today - twice. While stepping out of my home for a span of more than 2 minutes, I forgot to carry my mobile. The first time it happened, I was on my morning walk, and the second time in the evening, when I stepped out for dinner. Now don't get me wrong - I am not a mobile fanatic. Nor do I hate it the way some people seem to do. I find it an extremely useful tool (especially when you are locked out of your house and your flatmate is at his office and you don't have his mobile number in YOUR memory but only in the phone memory), though it might become an irritant at times. But there again the fault lies with the users, not the instrument or the service, isn't it?

Anyway, the crux of the matter is that I was without my phone for about 45 minutes in the morning, and about an hour in the evening - and no one missed me! No missed calls, no smses waiting for a reply. I am still to fathom out its impact on my ego. It does seem that the world can go about its business for substantial length of time without missing me. Taking a detached view of it, it does seem that one of the sources of self-esteem can be the number of people who call you on your mobile. Coming from my measurement oriented world, I wonder whether I can design a dashboard on self-esteem through mobile usage. We can divide the calls in three categories - personal, professional, and third-party (credit cards etc.). The calls you make or the calls that are being returned won't count. The number of points for each type of call will vary by the time of the day - during office hours, personal calls will get a higher weightage than professional calls, and vice versa. Professional calls during dinner, weekends and holidays will be absolute chartbusters. Calls from bankers and stockbrokers will rate higher than calls from the grocery store (asking for payment). Calls from a dentist will bring in more points than from, say, a gastroenterologist. And calls from spouses will be more precious than those from lovers (unless of course, its a call from a lover AFTER your marriage). And number of years of marriage should definitely be a factor - a call from a year-old wife is not quite the same as that from a 5-year old one, isn't it?

So at the end of it all, we can have a score published for every mobile user - some index similar to, say, wealth or popularity. What say! Of course, from my twin experiences today, I doubt I will be anywhere in the table at all.....need to start thinking of how to rig the system. :)

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BTW, I normally don't comment on comments (refer my first post outlining my policy on the issue). Now my friend Tabula Rasa tells me that this is against blogettiquette. I have no clue. What can I comment anyway? The usual comments are about liking what I wrote, and while I can question that (or give friendly advice like go get your head examined), I would rather bask in my moment of sunshine. When comments are specific to some point in the post, I don't want to react unless there is a factual error, or a misunderstanding of my point of view. Rest, it's all reader's point of view, isn't it, and who am I do dispute it?

That doesn't mean that two warriors can't choose my blog as their turf for blogging it out. So go ahead, thbpthh, do give Tabula a good one in the solar plexus for daring to comment on your comment. Since I know both of you, I can anticipate a good debate on whether there is anything like fair and unfair. Look forward to it... :)

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Had a pretty good saturday today - all to myself. Cleaned the house, washed two loads of clothes in washing machine, cut fingernails as well as toenails, shaved (on a saturday, thats an extraordinary gesture from me), read bits of Maximum City (deserves a post on its own, but in short - amazing insight into a city that I have deep feelings for), had a proper lunch....and washed the bathroom with acid (thats what I have in common with Narayana Murthy - though I don't know whether he uses acid or not). Anyway, the thought of acid takes me back to my least favorite subject - Chemistry, where I leant my acids from the more basic stuff.

I have never been able to understand my relationship with this subject - I did not hate it because it never seemed particularly malevolent, I definitely did not love it because it did not excite me the way History or Maths did, I wasn't even indifferent to it because, well, I had to pass in it at least. The teacher was not bad...in fact she was, and still is, one of the sweetest, prettiest ladies that graced our classrooms. She was more likely to herself cry after scolding a student for typical pranks (which would leave the student thoroughly confused). Since I was reasonably good at other subjects, she almost took it personally that I wasn't faring well at her's. My entreaties to her to take it professionally as all in a day's work failed - after all, it wasn't her fault if she did not know about the existence of some of the compunds I "discovered" on my way to balancing equations. That was one thing about my chemistry answers - my equations were always balanced, so what if by mixing two organic compounds, I ended up producing an inorganic one (I guess a mathematical inclination always helps). Anyway, I routinely scored my lowest marks in Chemistry all the way from class seven till 12th, and then dumped it for good. But it has been only of late that I have stopped getting my most frighetening nightmare - that I have my 12th standard chemistry paper and I haven't studied (which is pretty close to the truth, incidentally).

I am no longer in touch with the world of Chemistry. I wonder whether some of my discoveries have been validated by the scientific community by now. In that case, would like to go and submit my papers for revaluation. :)