Ummm.. a minor slip disc makes it a lot convenient to lie down in bed just about doing nothing but stare at the ceiling and contemplate about the greater things in life.

A moving aircraft, with passengers in disciplined rows inside. But look carefully! One of them is Superman! He stops a passing airhostess as she walks by, and says with typical Superman charm, "excuse me, would you please?", and hands over his red cape to her.

Far down the aisle, another superhero in red and blue beckons - Spiderman! He taps the seat board asking for a glass of orange juice. Elsewhere in the plane, Krissh reads a book on acrophobia (huh?), his black mask and light eyes looking at the viewers from above the pages of the book. And still elsewhere, Batman nods off to sleep, his black pointed ears (horns?) conspicuously visible above the seats.... And from behind, a kid looks at all the heroes and smiles gleefully.

About half a dozen copyrights violated in that ad, but who cares! The advertisement for www.cleartrip.com, I'm loving it…

A job well done. I think only a few things in life offer that complete satisfaction that a job well done offers. A quiet knowledge that no stone had been turned while accomplishing the given task at hand, that the world at large shall only smile and appreciate the final output never coming to know even a modicum of the kind of blood, sweat and tears that probably went into completing the task at the right time and in the right manner.

At times doing a thorough job can be a thankless effort, an unappreciative task – it is like a play where you're the artist as well as the audience, and the biggest critic that you have in your life is you. But hell, sometimes it is just that simple feeling of quiet satisfaction that matters, that nod of guiltless self-approval that makes all the effort worthwhile.

Parents brought me up with a full dose of the "if a job be done, then let it be done well… or let it not be done at all" maxim. Ever since, there is an unconscious radar that scouts around giving silent nods of approval to people who try to ensure that their work is indeed useful to somebody else - it may be just about anything mundane and ordinary: may be a follow-up call from the cable TV provider to check that the new channel that you asked for on the CAS has been initialized, or an enquiry from the new milkman that his quality of milk (they’re all watered anyway) meets with your approval, or anything of that sort where a service provider goes that extra step to ensure that the service has been rendered to the person’s approval. People who go that extra mile because they enjoy what they are doing and they want to ensure that their recipients also enjoy what they’re getting.

That got me thinking about three very different people that I saw in the week that went by.

HE LEAPS ACROSS THE ESCALATOR RAILINGS WITH THE EASE OF A GYMNAST. Then he points two fingers at a kid and made an action as if he was shooting the kid. He flutters balloons around him - and makes exaggerated faces while one of them burst while the kids around him roared in laughter. Dressed in bright red and yellow polka doted baggies, he doesn’t just walk - instead he hops, skips and twirls. And makes a million different ex-pressions with his painted face and his bulbous nose. The clown at a mall nearby, doing a majestic job of entertaining people around him.

HE WORKS IN THE PRODUCTION TEAM AT OUR OFFICE. His name is Sahay Pejavar. By qualification, he is far removed from the rest of us CAs & MBAs at office. But he is treated with respect by the entire floor. Why? Because of his zeal for perfection. The production team is in charge of ensuring that all presentations are properly formatted, the charts are properly inserted, and things like that. We often take the presentations to Sahay and ask him to format a particularly difficult page for us. Sahay does it with characteristic ease, and then he proceeds on to the next page, finds something there to improve upon, then he looks up at the page after that, makes some touch-ups here and there, then he moves to the next page… and in the end, the entire presentation is vetted by him. Anything that leaves Sahay’s table is worth its weight in gold. And Sahay doesn’t stay in the lane next to office. His home is at least one and a half hour’s trip (oneway). We’ve shared several 3:00 a.m. cab rides from office (and reported back at 9:30). Sahay does an amazing job.

HE KNOCKS ON MY CAR WINDOW WITH AN ARMFUL OF MAGAZINES. “Sa’ab, khareed lo sa’ab. Khaana nahi khaaya hai sa’ab. Ek magazine khareed lo sa’ab…” I study his face impassively. Why impassively? Because I’ve seen him the week before. And the week before that. And even the week before that week. This is his modus operandi. Knock on the glass, give his sob story, and get his objective accomplished somehow.

Three different people, three different approaches to their daily routine.

And life continues as usual.

Anyways, time now for me to lie down and not strain my back sitting up on bed anymore. Time for some more idle thoughts for this idle fellow.

Adios!

“If it falls to our luck to be street-sweepers, sweep the streets, like Raphael painted pictures, like Michaelangelo carved marble, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, and like Beethoven composed music. Sweep the streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth would have to pause and say ... ...Here lived a great street sweeper"

-- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., June 20, 1965, Kingston, Jamaica

(Am still on the 'job well done' mode, and no one ever captured it better than Martin Luther King Jr. with this quote)

"If only tears were laughter, if only night was day

If only prayers were answered, then we would hear God say

No matter what they tell you, no matter what they do

No matter what they teach you, what you believe is true

And I will keep you safe and strong, sheltered from the storm

No matter where it's barren, a dream is being born..."

- "No Matter What"

Boyzone