I was chatting with a blogging mate of mine about the stuff that life’s generally made of – Bill Bryson, DC writers with a penchant for ignoring rules, assorted idiots who cannot read / absorb the clear Comments policy, Bangalore weather v Chennai, relative merits of LinkedIn, Orkut, Tagged etc when the topic arrived, some how, at girls. Well, this isn’t such a shocking concept considering I am a card carrying member of the species but in this instance, it is the lack of eligible bachelorettes that was causing said mate some problems.

Birthdays arriving thick and fast, with no suitable girl sending a gushing Val’s day card has proved to be the bane of his mum’s life and she has recently given up dropping subtle hints in favour of actively jabbing him with the fork during meal times, in an effort to make him get the skates on and get on with the job of getting her a daughter in law, like NOW.

In this enlightened day and age, us being blogoholics and all that, what better way to kick start this modern day head hunt than, well, blog about it? Rather like the matrimonial version of The Apprentice, we are now inviting applicants for the enviable role of a permanent partner of Mr K. Of course, there are a few stipulations: that the applicant must be a girl, is an obvious one. She must also belong to the enviable TamBram community of South India, in order to please the senior cast member.

Interested applicants leave a message in the comments and await our call eagerly.

Man: (on his phone) Hello? I should be there by 11:35 PM. Could you come and pick me up?

….

Man: Ok, after you finish watching the Weather then.

…

Man: I’ll wait, no, no, I..

….

Man: (sigh) Tell you what, you watch the Weather and I‘ll walk home.

(Click.)

Have you gone days without actually spending a penny but the minute you draw some money out of your account, seen it disappear in five minutes?

Have you ever sat twiddling your thumbs in a traffic snarl, bumper to bumper with all the other road ragers on Monday morning, and fumed at the idiots speeding away in the opposite direction?

Have you ever listened to the weather forecast, paid heed and gone out in summer clothes, only to show up at work in your favourite drowned rat get up? Or how about the next time you show the weather girl a finger and gone out in proper cold weather attire, only to look like a mug as the sun shines brightly all day?

Have you stood in the queue for a long time, waiting patiently for your turn to catch your favourite musical, only to go in and sit behind a pillar? Or sat next to the bloke who’s behind a pillar, who makes his annoyance known to the world and its wife?

Or is it just me?

We did not get off to a good start this morning. We were stuck behind the garbage truck, as they do their weekly collection round. Even as I was impatiently twiddling my thumbs behind the monster truck, I couldn’t help noticing the flies – or lack of them, buzzing around the garbage like they should do. I am not saying the firang refuse smelled of sweet perfume, but they didn’t make me want to gag my intestines out. There was no unsightly bits hanging about or littered around the half mile radius, sort of like a billboard announcement as to the activity that took place there recently.

And of course, as one does normally in such situations, I started thinking, When would we get to such a state in India, where a garbage truck did not get a huge crowd of flies and other buzzards circling it? It is a small thing and I know the ONYX is doing a brilliant job it is such a small thing, isn’t it? Doing a job well. But small thing doesn’t mean it is simply done.

If you are familiar with Chennai during the summer months, then the water tanker lorries would be a familiar sight as well. For those who aren’t, these are blue, rectanglular sided lorries, with METRO WATER emblazoned on all sides. There is no mistaking the contents as the water would be sloshing off the top of the lorry and generally bathe the scooter following it. At times of acute water shortage, when the precious commodity would be rationed, it was disturbing to see huge rivulets of water running down the streets, marking the path of the lorries. I remember a Class IX physics lesson about centre of gravity and my teacher took the example of the water tanks and how unsound their structure is, as they have a highly unstable centre of gravity. So why wasn’t a power that be making sure that we had friendlier water carriers, that did not waste it?

What about our roads? Why is it that anarchy reigns supreme on them? Why haven’t we got something simple like a codebook for drivers?

Other general matters of etiquette like queuing, holding the door open for the person coming behind you rather than slamming it on their noses, personal space, personal hygeine, respecting others’ freedom are all abstract concepts.

We are all busy patting ourselves on our backs about the big things – technological advancement, getting more and more MNCs to invest in our country, increasing GDP etc but IMHO, we are losing sight of the small things, things that will elevate us from also rans to a true-blue advancing country. After all, God is in the details and until we realise that, all-round development will be a foreign concept.