An easy way to reset your passwords

My daughter recently relocated to London after marriage and left India commanding me “ Thou shalt be available for me online from at least 4.pm. to 10p.m. daily”.I just implicitly obeyed my daughter [as all mothers these days do] and had a lot of online time in front of me begging me to optimally use it. I instantly became a member of as many social networking sites as possible , created my own blog and also created new mail ids just to surprise my techsavvy daughter.
Being utterly new to my virtual lifespace I naturally ended up forgetting my passwords and carefully typed in the wrong password every time and I also had the temerity to tell my less savvy{more blessed} husband that the password was right and only the site was behaving rottenly and refusing to accept it. Probably this password was not meant for it, my husband used to add timidly as a way of explanation and I turned a deaf ear to it because I knew he was speaking the truth though unknowingly! Till day he may not know the real secret behind my password chases , but he has always been very sympathetic with my sincere ,strenuous efforts to reset the password each time. .He only marvelled at my patient endeavours to set the system straight! Probably he was mortified by the way the system illtreated his intelligent wife and one day he gave a great idea. If computers can do so many brainy things, why don’t you ask the PC to remember your passwords , he asked. It was now my turn to marvel at his intelligence. I jumped at the idea and commanded my computer to remember all the passwords- mine and my husbands’.
Yes he too had a password to remember! His email id .He always gave me the privilege to open his id and each time he asked me to check his mail I did it with a lot of pomp and paraphernalia! I made sure that he looked at me with great awe because I was doing something which he had never done in his life! Checking his mail! The computer took care of all my password woes and life actually started becoming blissful till that fateful dawn! My computer crashed !
Whatever I did , it refused to budge. I strangely remembered the bullock carts of yesteryears which came to a standstill in the middle of the road when one of the bullocks decided to call it a day. The cart driver could never use his good office to persuade the bullock to change its mind and all the passersby used to throw a glare at the cart driver for some strange reason! the PC is also of a similar breed which will not listen to my cajoling tricks and stubbornly insist on a special service engineer to arrive before it decides to open a conversation!.
Strangely my husband becomes more upset when each time the computer crashes though technically speaking I am more techsavvy of the two! He throws such tantrums that I immediately try and get a service engineer to repair my PC. Each time my service engineer arrives with his mysterious looking hold-all, he is treated with due deference and it has almost become a routine that the kitchen is closed after I make some hot coffee for the engineer and my husband because I believe that my presence by the computer is strictly essential for the PC to become alive again. This ritual is religiously followed every time there is a crash because I seem to have strangely lead my husband into believing that I was the cause of the crash and therefore I shall be instrumental in its revival too! I just keep the service engineer in good humour discussing all matters except the computer with him. I strongly believe that professionals don’t appreciate bouts of guided repair.He knows his job and permit him to do it, is my policy. But then why should I be hanging around?I owe it to my another strange belief that being a sympathetic listener will make anyone more indebted to you and therefore he shall do his best and therefore the computer will be repaired in such a way that it will not crash in the near future!
Whether it is due to any of my such queer beliefs or not ,the PC came back to life and the triumphant engineer asked me to see whether I was able to access my mail. The unmistakable glee on his face encouraged me and I went to the mail site. But the password had done the great escape and I quickly spotted that same must be the case with ever so many sites I am a member of !My woes have returned to me with a cataclystic force. Earlier, I was just fumbling with one password at a time, but now there was a battalion waiting there to be renamed by me!
Undaunted by my cruel fate I tried opening my mail with the service engineer still standing there revelling in his victory! I typed in my mail id which I have not yet learned how to forget and was waiting for my engineer to shut his eyes so that he does not know my password while I typed it {though I was myself not very sure whether I knew it }.But nothing would deter him from peering into my keypad as I was fumbling with my keys. I silently determined that I should write to all those who were in charge of training computer service engineers impressing on them the importance of training their students in computer etiquette which simply means that they turn a blind eye when each of their client typed in their password!
My service engineer was waiting to see me access my mail. That probably was his winning shot. I gathered all my courage and hoping against hope that I typed in the wrong password as usual, I pressed the keys. I was chuckling to myself .I knew I was right ! I knew the mail would not open But Alas the mail did open ! and my engineer cleared the place leaving a trail of triumph behind. It was my husband’s turn to take over. He profusely thanked the engineer and gave him his fee happily and saw him off with a lot of gratitude! When he came back he saw me still fumbling with my keys with consternation writ large on my countenance.
He dreaded the obvious. What happened, has the computer crashed again, he asked. No, I said , the service engineer has found out my password. He was furious. Who asked you to make all such secret things public, he fumed. But he also gave the only alternative. Reset your password. He must have over the days acquired this belief that I am very good at resetting passwords!
I embarked on my journey of resetting the ever so many passwords! I know it is not the easiest thing on the earth, though strangely almost all the sites proclaimed that it was the most common thing to occur and they are all more than willing to cooperate in this adventure of resetting the password. It all starts in a seemingly harmless way. They offer you a box of letters and numbers mercilessly beaten out of shape and challenge you to copy them onto the space provided by them .{The letters are not case sensitive} is a major helping hand that they lend you in this risky adventure .
We are asked to repeat this exercise till the PC itself becomes weary of it and then we enter the next step of answering some strange details about our own family which we may have forgotten effortlessly. The computer always has the uncanny knack of remembering them and precisely asking for the same. I was fortunate enough to remember the name of my eldest nephew , but I sincerely don’t know how I made a mistake regarding the first car I owned .I cannot make any mistake regarding this fact because I had owned only one car.
I am till date wondering why we had bought a car when neither my husband nor I knew driving and we never intended hiring a driver because drivers as a tribe have become a very costly affair nowadays. Only fortunate thing about having bought a car was that the minute we handed over the cash to the previous owner we instantly realized the worthlessness of owning a car .It was like an epiphany! Of course, it was too late to have done anything about it. Like the docile cows of yesteryears our little black car which had an illustrious history was actually tied to our portico. With the little driving skill I had learnt from ever so many driving schools after we had bought the car ,I just managed to take it for a walk daily to keep the battery functioning.
Whatever brand name I typed in , the computer said hmmmm….lets give it a try again.My husband who stood by watching all my genuine efforts go futile,said if the computer knows better , ask it to give the right name.I had only involved him in the exercise halfway when I became totally confused about the brand of our only one car after having spent nearly half an hour typing out all the brand names I was familiar with. Some of the names I had typed in just in sweet revenge, throwing a challenge to the brainy computer.I almost started to believe that we had not owned a car at all and typed out no car.It was the turn of the computer now. It said for security reasons accessibility to the site has been closed for the next 24 hours probably indicating that I cannot pursue the naming game anymore that day.
I heaved a sigh of relief.Which means the service engineer also could not gain access to my site. But like a typical Indian woman, I doubted the computer like I doubt every sincere thing on the earth.I just called up my daughter abroad and asked her to check whether she could access my mail because I had a problem locally.I did not know whether I was sounding techsavvy but still I asked her to check my mail. She knows my password! She accessed it in no time and informed me over the phone.I became jittery again and quickly asked her to change my password. She did change the password in a jiffy and told me the new one. At last I have found an effective way to create and remember my passwords!

Which management school did she attend?

She had already reached home well before it was 9 a.m. “Today is the first day that Gopi has woken up before 9 ”, the contractor told me later .. She was well groomed.,had her well oiled hair tied in a single plait, complete with flowers and all.The thick silver anklets she was wearing created an interesting sound each time she walked.Under the tree there was a small plastic wire bag which had a compact steel tiffin box and a water bottle too!. She was impatiently sitting under the neem tree waiting for her tools.

I remember the conversation the contractor had had with her the previous evening. “Amma, tomorrow morning I want you at Mylapore.It is a small job and you can finish it in less than an hour. I will ask Gopi to pick you up at around 9-30.” He was interrupted. “What? It is too late? But Gopi cannot get up before 9. Okay I will send him before 9.Do you have the tools with you?” She had left them in the site where she was working. The owner continued on his phone,” OK Gopi will bring you to Mylapore and then get your tools. So be ready by 8-30”.She must have been ready by 8-30 because she had arrived before 9 at my place.

The previous day there was some job for a plumber who had done such a work that it needed a mason to set it right. As I was discussing the damage done to my backyard wall with the contractor he tried to passify me by recounting the woes of a contractor.He wanted to distract me from the damage caused to my compound wall.”It is difficult to identify someone to repair the wall at this part of the day. It is already 6p.m. All my staff have been given their daily duty in the beginning of the week. I can’t disturb anyone . Probably I can request her to come. If she agrees nothing like it. She is a great worker”.

What was so special about her? She was the only woman who has risen to the mesthiri status , he explained. Usually women were recruited only as assistants to mason. And no one has ever dared to attain the status of a mason. But she had dared. When her husband deserted her she had two sons and two daughters to fend for. She did not lose heart. She had to go to different construction sites in search of job. At one point when a mason had ditched our contractor , he dared to give the opportunity to her and she rose to the occasion. It was an epiphanic moment for her and for him .She turned out to be such a perfect mason and her work showed the difference and she was promptly appreciated by the clients. The contractor wanted to satisfy his clents and gave her more opportunities and she never failed to impress all of them. She was paid on par with the other male masons which hurt many of them who had been with the contractor for many years. One or two even quit work.

She can never stay idle in any site. She used to get agitated if there was any scarcity of building material in the site. “She will never hesitate to call me over and over again to remind me about lack of building material..In case, for some unforeseen reason there is any delay in the supply of material and she had to waste half a day without work ,she will refuse to take payment”,.I was astounded at this mark of integrity. "Why do you want to incur loss by paying me when I have not worked", she used to question him if he offered to pay the full wages for the day though she had work for only half a day. “Even if the client pays you it is still a loss for him. No one should suffer any loss of money or time and I don’t want to be the cause for it”, she used to explain which made her unpopular among her peers. Another major problem faced by her colleagues was that she was always on time at the site and hated it if her assistants did not reach the site on time. The contractor solved this problem by giving her the freedom to recruit her own assistants.

The contractor had effectively passified me and simultaneously raised my curiosity about this magic mason.He promised to bring her the next day to rectify the damage done by his plumber. Just as I was eagerly waiting for her she had arrived.The tools also had arrived.Gopi had also remembered to bring a small bag of cement. But he had forgotten the sand. The contractor was suggesting to Gopi that he went to the nearby shop and pretended that we required just one basin of sand for pooja purposes. Otherwise no shop will permit purchase of sand in such small quantities., he explained.

When such conversation was going on she quietly went to the other side of the compound and inspected the ground.and spotted the sand that wsas spread on the walkway. I suddenly rmembereed how in the earlier tryst with another contractor I was left with two full bags of sand without any use. They dumped it in the garden because I had paid for it. I remember how I had paid another person quite a sum to just spread this sand all through the walkway .This smart woman who was there for just less than half an hour was quick to spot the sand strewn all over the walkway and promptly using a tool of hers managed to gather soon a basin full of fine sand for the small brick work.

In less than half an hour she had finshed her work.I could not but admire the finish of her work.It was like a painter working with his brush. She used different sizes of tools and seemed to have lost herself in the work. She did not get distracted by any of our conversation.When the work was over she cleaned the place meticulously and asked the supervisor where she should dump the waste material and promptly disposed it.

Meanwhile I again found myself imploring with the contractor that he should see how he can use the old motor cover to hide the new jet motor. He summarily dismissed me saying this old cover will not suit the new motor.

Fortunately for me he received a phone call and by that time she had finished all her work, packed her tools and was ready to leave. She quietly walked up to me and said “Amma, this motor cover does not sit properly on the new motor because it has been clamped to the wall in a different manner. Just ask them to cut open a portion of the cover so that it sits right .” By this time the contractor had finished his conversation on the phone and returned to me. I explained to him the idea given by her as though it was my original idea and now it was his turn to be astounded, A brilliant idea, he said and gave the job to Gopi. I had to just make one or two reminder calls and it was done. I still cannot but be awestruck by the ingenuity, integrity, commitment, and camaraderie of this first woman mason of the world.

Why have I not blogged so long?

Some think I am stern, many think I am dictatorial. Probably because I insist on self discipline and I do so because I strongly believe that we perform our best under constraint and self discipline is one ideal method of working under constraint.

I am also branded as a perfectionist. Probably because I believe that everyone should use every opportunity one gets to the optimal level thinking as though it is the last opportunity ever he or she got.

I can never stand a substandard job because I think any substandard job is a job done by a dead person. A person who lives in the present is 100 per cent available on the spot while doing a job which also goes by the familiar expression ‘putting one’s heart and soul into the job’. Naturally, any job done in that frame of mind is an accomplishment. I want everything I do to be an accomplishment. Probably because of this I tend to postpone things till I am convinced I have acquired the necessary expertise. ( Is it good or bad?)

I always think I don’t know enough and probably that is one predominant reason why I have not started blogging till now. I am rather adventurous about acquiring knowledge and like to be the first to learn anything that is new. I am an eager learner and open to learning from everyone.. Therefore I am an alert observer and a patient listener. I am easily the earliest to detect any good trait or skill of everyone I come across because all along I am on the look out for something admirable in each person I meet that I can acquire and enrich my personality. I am a ready appreciator and also a great motivator. I feel that everyone of us should be responsible citizens of not only our nation but also of mother earth. The youth should be inspired to contribute in a great way for the proper governance of this nation and careful preservation of earth. Each one has a primary duty of making his /her country a better place to live in. I have taken it upon myself as a noble mission to motivate and inspire more and more youth about this fundamental duty of theirs towards their motherland and Mother earth.

I am an incorrigible optimist and no amount of distress or diversity can ever leave me despondent. I'm passionate about whatever I do and it really feels great to be so. The joy one gets while doing anything one is passionate about is unparrelelled. Probably it is because of this that I insist that everyone else should also feel the same way about whatever they do.

I am a person of varied interests from economics to meditation to spirituality to cooking to astrology . I love the English language a great deal and am equally passionate about writing and reading Tamil. As a teacher I want to make all learning experiences memorable for my students.

Give me five minutes of your time,please.But all the 300 seconds of them

She was standing at the entrance of my room. I could sense her though I did not lift my head because I was busy giving the finishing touches to my article. She has been waiting there for quite some time now , but only the last few minutes she was frantically trying to catch my attention. Just as I lifted my head I could see her tear-filled eyes imploring me to let her meet me. “Yes, come in”, I said and the next minute she was there right in front of me sobbing to her heart’s content .I offered her water from my bottle which she hesitatingly got from me and gulped down a little. I allowed her to calm down. After a few minutes of uneasy silence only punctuated by her receding sobs she decided to speak and I was ready to listen.

The usual tale of betrayal by the man whom she loved most. She had known him for less than six monhs. She met him in a party that she had attended along with her friend for the first time. He was so ‘dashy’ and ‘cool’.She fell for him and thought he saw heaven in her. The mad rush came to a jolting halt when she vaguely sensed that he was consciously avoiding her The reason: he no more found her interesting .She was summarily dismissed each time she approached him for justice.

I remembered the recent telecommercial. At least here it seems to have lasted six months .But in the commercial ? In the commercial the boy who is allured by another girl during his date with his girlfriend decides to part as friends. The date agrees readily because she also has found another boy more attractive than her erstwhile boyfriend. Her former boyfriend understands her mood and acknowledges the ridiculous situation with a knowing smile.

How could I help this girl? What was her problem? What had upset her ? That he had betrayed her? Yes, to a certain extent. Had she gone deep into the relationship that it was difficult to retrace the steps as Macbeth put it? Was she on the verge of meeting a lady doctor? Not exactly, though there was something very physical about the relationship. Was she sad because she had to part with him? No. I was surprised.

Then what was causing her to be so uncontrollably sad? Her tears were not tears of sorrow but of anger, she clarified. Angry with whom? Him? Yes. Him and also herself. Why , because she felt betrayed? Not betrayed but insulted. Insulted? Because she was not able to attract a guy anymore? Yes and no. She felt cheated because he had made use of her naïve trust in him to commit a physical assault on her. She had participated in everything thinking she was the only woman in his life. She was actually angry with herself for having permitted him to devouver her inner self before even knowing him better It was a brutal assault on her self respect. The very thought of him gloating over his latest spoil maddened her with anger.

But other than trust in him what goaded her to have taken this extreme step of letting him in in the first place? She had no answer.I had another question. What if he had not ditched her so frankly but had gone along with another girl simultaneously? If she had named what he had done to her as betrayal what would she have named this simultaneous disloyalty? Her predicament was strange. Should she be glad that he was frank and let her go or should she take revenge upon him for ditching her?

Was he alone in the wrong? What exactly was wrong about the whole affair? What were the factors that led her up to this? Who had guided her in her journey of passion? Had it ever occurred to her that a relationship of this kind was a life-long commitment? Did it not seem to her as strange that the boy felt she was nor more interesting all of a sudden? Does it mean that somebody else has managed to attract him presently? {Like the commercial}What is the guarantee that someone else will not supersede her in the future?

This has become the trend with youth nowadays. They are easily bored with anything soon. There is no longlasting like or dislike for anything .No whim lasts for more than a week. There is no passion for anything as such. No fervour for anything. Loyalty is no more a cherished virtue by the youth. Do they have lifelong friends? I have my own doubts.They cannot stick to one employer .Earlier they had shifted jobs for a hike in pay,for a better designation, for interesting perks. But now ,it is not anymore prestigious to be loyal to one employer. They are even afraid that they may not be treated with respect if they stick to the same employer for more than a year or two.

Is this attitude towards life wrong or right? Like the girl in the commercial if everyone applies this yardstick to measure every activity of others probably nobody may be hurt. But if this is going to be followed with a religious zeal by all youth of the present day , where will it lead them to? They will be drifting away from each other with no anchor to support them, no fundamental emotion to keep them in their stead. They will miss the thrill of staying together with the the dear and near through thick and thin. There will be nobody for them and they will be nobody for anyone. Aren’t the youth paying a huge prize for this shallow revelry? Aren’t they denying themselves the pleasures attendant on loyalty like dependability, trustworthiness, a sense of belonging, and a profound meaning for life?

Probably our friend too had not been very serious about her choice because she never treated it as a life-time commitment. The pleasures of a new friendship just thrilled her and she was ready to pay any prize for it. Had she respected herself the most she would not have agreed to give herself to an unknown person so quickly..

But what is the ultimate cause for such haste in accepting and rejecting? Such a ready exchange program of lovers ?Can I term it intolerance? Or is it true that no one is sure what exactly he or she wants from a relationship? Why is there so much lack of clarity ? Isn’t it true that what you expect from a relationship you shall deliver unto it too?

”Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us and deliver us from evil. Amen”