Based on my recent shoe-purchasing adventures and misadventures (purchased 4 pairs during Diwali), I propose the following check-list about what one ought to do and not to do while purchasing shoes.

1. Never purchase shoes that have been put up for rebate / discounted sale. Most of these shoes are partially damaged or factory-seconds. Also, their fitting may not be up-to-the mark. Besides, only one shoe would be put up on display, its jodidaar, kept separately, would generally be in a relatively bad shape (if nothing else, there may be a slight contrast in their colours). So moral of the story: Always go in for fresh stock, even if it means shelling out a little more.

2. Always try the pair by putting it on yourself. The area where we miss the trick is when we allow the salesman to put the shoe onto out foot, giving him the liberty to loosen/widen the laces to give a deceptive feeling of comfort. Remember, the salesman would not make you put on the shoe after its purchase, so try the shoes yourself.

3. For shoes with laces, chances are that you would be offered shoes where laces are running only through the first and last row of holes (generally there are 3-6 rows of lace-holes). My suggestion is that before the purchase, please request the salesman to properly do the laces completely and then try the pair, else you may end up buying a pair that felt OK in the showroom but gives you shoe bites later.

4. Don't be satisfied with the fitting on one foot. Try out the pair, lest the other foot suffers later.

5. For shoes in the high-end bracket, manufacture is generally hand-made and not machine-made. therefore, it is quite OK to ask for multiple pairs of the same size and same make and then selecting one shoe from one pair and the other from another, since fitting may vary from shoe-to-shoe and even foot-to-foot.

6. Once you select a shoe, don't take it off and ask the salesman to pack it. Instead, keep wearing it and request the salesman to pack the footwear with which you had walked into the showroom, lest he inadvertently packs another pair.

I hope yeh salah dekar main joote khaane waala kaam nahin kar raha hoon.

I am often amazed to see a strange pattern in a seemingly mundane day-to-day activity, a pattern whose logic I simply can't understand. I would appreciate if you could help me understand this.

While shopping, at the time of paying our bills in cash, the balance is returned by the cashier /counter-person in such a manner that all the cash notes are arranged in one sequence except the last note. For instance, if you shop for items worth Rs. 100/- and pay through a Rs. 1000/- note, the concerned person while returning 9 hundred rupee notes to you would arrange eight notes with Gandhiji's photo on one side and water-mark on the other, but would reverse the pattern for the last note. Is it done as a good-luck charm or is it as per some accountancy principle?
Even most ATMs dispense money in a manner that all notes have 'Gandhiji-watermark combo' in one pattern, but the pattern is reversed for the last 5 notes of Rs. 100/- denomination. Do you know why?

I am pretty convinced that GOOD is the enemy of GREAT.

Whenever we embark on any endeavour - big or small- we have two options available. One option is to somehow manage to complete the job, the other is to give our heart and soul to the job. Fructification of either option would see the job completed, but the degree of satisfaction that the latter sentiment brings is so very fulfilling, its joy is simply incomparable. A great job means so much more than a mere good job.

A great player would always play to win, while a good player would play not to lose. A small degree change in attitude can bring about such a monumental change in not only the level of emotional fulfilness but also in one's fame & fortunes.

Have a GREAT day- today and always!

I often wonder as to why should the customer care executives of credit cards and mobile companies choose to begin their every sentence with a phrase that goes something like this:

Jee haan...Bilkul...main aapko bataana chahoonga ki...

Whether aap sunna chaheinge ki nahin is none of their concerns, their sentence MUST begin with this phrase without exception.

I feel what they really want to accomplish is to put you off, maybe bang the landline phone (or bang your head against the wall in case you are using your cell phone) since they rarely have a satisfactory reply to offer and by basically repeating what you always knew and by repeating such like phrases, they aim at making you sway from seeking the service in a focussed manner.
And I don't know whether it is funny or height of irritatability when they would close the conversation with " Anyyhing else you would like to know: Aap kuchh aur jan-na chaheinge?
And you nearly yell: Nahiiiin!

What has been your experience?

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
-Khalil Gibran

We normally tend to have a condescending attitude towards our countrymen who hail from Bihar, but there is one area where no one can beat them: Tongue twisters.

Try speaking She sells sea shells on a sea shore and you are likely to get stuck somewhere, but one brothers from Bihar would get it in one go. It is quite another matter that what they get would sound something like see sells see sells on the see sore!

I wonder whether Lata Mangeshkar was aware as to how the song Luka Chhupi bahut hui would be picturized by the maverick director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra before consenting to croon it, for had she known, she might have declined the song.

For sure, it is a wonderfully composed lori-type of song with a mother reminiscing the shararat-bhara bachpan of her naughty son.

But wasn't the song overly pleasant and too high on the tempo given the situation for which it figures in the movie? Certainly not the song you would have while receiving the dead body of the martyred son. May be Rakeysh Mehra could have used a couple of lines of the song during the first half of the movie so that the viewer can pick up the threads, but the happy-paced lori coming in your face in a very sad situation seems immensely baffling. What say?