Snippets of Life|epi-7|Anything in excess

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What meets the eye...., need not be true...

What meets the eye, may not be true, well, most of the time. I read a story recently in a whatsapp message (sent by my close friend). A cruise ship was about to sink after an accident in the sea. There was space for only one in the life-boat. The requirement was for two (a husband & wife). In the split second they had, to decide, the husband jumped on to the life-boat, leaving his wife to sink with the cruise ship. Now, what is our conclusion? Is the man selfish, to abandon his wife? Or was there any hidden reason, known only to the two of them? Yes, that is right! Before they embarked on the journey, the wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness (she just had a few days of survival) and hence they wanted to spend the few days together happily on the sea journey. They had a very young daughter back home. She had to be brought up and that responsibility was already on the man. What met our eyes is deceptive. On the surface, the man must have looked to be a selfish, irresponsibl...
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How ethical are we....?

Recently there was a news item in the media, which prompted me to think, 'how ethical are we? The news was : A family in Australia received in their bank account $ 10 million, instead of a refund of $ 100. It was a huge mistake by the remitting agency. The beneficiary, instead of reporting it to the relevant authorities, started splashing the money (legally and ethically, not theirs) around. They bought a mansion, gave away costly gifts to friends and relatives and started living a 'princely' life. The mistake was found out by the remitter after 7 months and now the court also confirms that they have to repay the 'wrongly' received amount plus the interest. Is it not 'greed' of the highest order??? We can (with a wild guess) say that at least 95% people are not ethical. Given a chance, even normally ethical people will resort to unethical means. We are not true to ourselves. We should be honest in every walk of life. Even in the absence of any witness to our...
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Imperial units.... or metric....?

It was the time the transition from 'British to Metric' system was being implemented. The conversion from 'pound' to 'kilogram', 'gallon' to 'liter', 'mile' to 'kilometer' was not easy, to say the least... The current system of currency and coins (decimalized) was also introduced that time (1957). Earlier it was all 'anna' and 'paisa'. Sixteen annas make one rupee and each anna comprises of 4 paisa. A 1/4 anna coin (1 paisa) was very much in use, which was 1/64th of a rupee. That could buy something substantial! Though most of the measures are mentioned in 'metric' system now, still we see the common usage of British units in some areas. The construction drawings might show the distances in meters but in the brackets you would see the distance written in 'feet'. Even now most of the construction field staff can easily visualize the distance in feet only. For them, that comes naturally. The ship...
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