BY BIKRAM VOHRA
People have purple patches where everything goes right for them. What is the opposite of that? When things just go wrong in a series. You lose a document. You get a throat infection. The car breaks down. The domestic help ups and leaves. A dead debt comes alive and dances hideously in front of you. There is a problem in the office. The money you are owed doesn’t come on time. A hidden expense slams you in the face. You have a family fight over a trivial matter because your nerves are taut and you are juggling ten crises at the same time.
Then one morning you get a break and you think, okay the whatever colour bad patch is over. But it is not. It is just getting a second wind.
And you lose your ID and some money is missing and your mobile phone falls and breaks down and the A/C unit starts leaking water down the wall and the computer plays host to a virus which you send out to other people who hate you for it and you find a friend is not a friend and a trust is broken and you cannot believe it and the airlines lose your luggage and your favourite spectacles crack a lens and relatives call to say can they stay over on their way to London and you have to say yes, because it wouldn’t look nice to say just bug off and someone cheats you and coffee is spilled on your ultra expensive dress and the electricity bill is humongous and there goes your budget for the month and it is exactly in this frame of mind that your best staffer puts in a resignation and you wonder will this ever end?
Then you realise these are problems but they aren’t PROBLEMS. Like real problems, situations where you are helpless, states you don’t want to be in, fighting genuine fears and hurt and pain and if you understand that then what you do is you quietly count your blessings.
In short, the hell with the expensive dress. Drop more coffee on it, it is no big deal.