ChinmayC Blog

You’d likely find the rather interjectory title above preposterous, absurd or even a bit offensive. And you’d probably be very right too; for you might be intensely aware of the joys of kulhad tea in the northern states of the country like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar among others or bharer cha of West Bengal among other eastern states—both of which varieties mean steaming milk tea served in earthen or clay cups. You might also angrily retort by saying ‘come winter and you show me the way without the steaming hot milk tea for company’! I heartily second your opinion and your taste buds, because I too am all for the cups of milk tea—be it on the street corners or at home. However, I still have my concerns and fears that are based on my experience in the last few years. But of course, I don’t have empirical data to justify my fears which ultimately may be termed as totally subjective. Whatever it is, I must elaborate my point.   I’d first concentrate on my home state Assam , though...

Say No To Tea! We have already seen how some snobbish and ludicrous bosses try to cut down on wasteful office expenditures. All such characters necessarily boil down to the entirely harmless cup of tea. They deprive their lesser colleagues and visitors of their intrinsic right to a cup of tea as if by doing that they manage to save a whole lot of expenditures. This is only an extreme case of being pound-foolish and penny-wise. At the moment we would like to regale you with another classic example concerning your harmless cup of tea. The boss in a local production house wanted to adopt austerity measures and it was factually doubtful if he was actually directed by his headquarters to do so. And he came down heavily on the tea served now and then from the hospitality budget. Maybe he wanted to show his tea-clout as some of his furious colleagues would like to say. The office hospitality account was available to him and the next two in the hierarchy, but suddenly the boss started book-ke...

At the start of the New Year a good friend of mine sent me a joke on the husband-wife syndrome. While talking about a certain ‘Law of Equality’ it says,” The time taken by a wife  when she says to her waiting husband ‘I’ll get ready in five minutes’ is exactly equal to the time taken by a husband when he tells his wife from office ‘I’ll call you back in five minutes!’” This reminds me of an old joke about couples where the law of equality seems to be maintained in some measure. “A couple quarreled bitterly and they were not on talking terms. It was night and the logjam continued. Now, the hubby had to go for an urgent appointment early in the morning and he did not believe in the alarm clock because he used to shut it up on the very first ring. He needed his wife’s help, but how? So he left a note by her pillow-side that said ‘Please wake me up at 7am’. He overslept and finally waking up found the clock striking 8. He jumped up and as he began cursing the institution of marriage he...

One imposing stern-faced snobbish bureaucrat showed an innovative way not only to control but to altogether cut away wasteful expenditures recently. A team of experts were visiting his company to assess performance and productivity of various faculties and departments. There was everything official about it and the officer had no risk of spending a penny from his pocket. Now, due to links and sub-links the visiting team did not necessarily remain limited to only the experts and naturally expanded into a bigger one. Other company officials had to join too for various reasons. Anyway, there were no problems and the big team went on visiting. The last stop was an interactive session with high tea. This time the imposing stern-faced snobbish bureaucrat put his assistant at the hall entrance and started screening people selecting specimen from his dear clan mostly for entry. So, many justifiably linked members of the team were effectively debarred from the last session…specifically the te...