Free Loaders

It was a regular meeting of our Rotary Clubs at a star hotel. Members started arriving early to do justice to the High tea that precedes all our meetings. Usually during our meetings  we get visitors from other clubs to make up their attendance. On this particular day, we saw a well dressed, educated man walking in and  proceeding straight to the buffet table. He was filling his plate with a generous helping of every item on the table. When some members tried to find out the Club to which he belonged, he replied that he was from Trichy but was evasive when we tried to probe him further. He was obviously a gate crasher or free loader as I call them who shamelessly visit meetings in star hotels with the sole purpose of having free meals. In my long experience of managing scores of meetings and conferences I have come across many such despicable characters. I have an uncanny knack of spotting such guys, however well dressed and sophisticated they may look.

I am a member of a Book Club in Chennai which organizes at least two meetings every month in a star hotel preceded by High Tea.  A large number of members used to turn up at such meetings which  also  included many non-members/free loaders, who not only filled  up their plates with generous helping of items on the table but some of them also fill up a carry bag with the items. To counter this menace the Club decided to issue membership cards which the members had to show at the entrance to the meeting venue before they are admitted. Though the freeloaders were  prevented from attending meetings  with this step by the Club, it couldn`t stop a few paying members from behaving like  free loaders. You see, these guys, who were not genuine book lovers, found out that by paying the annual membership fee, which probably covered the cost of 5 or 6 meetings, they could get free meals  for 25 meetings. Very good value for money.

Free loaders in marriages are very common. When suspicious organizers question them they get away by saying that they belong to the girl`s party or the boy`s party depending on who asks them the question. But an incident that I witnessed at a friend`s son`s wedding at a well known marriage hall floored me. While I was having my meal, sitting in the `Pandhi`, I noticed an old couple with two big tiffin carriers filling up the containers with the items on the serving table. A few servers from the catering team were even helping them. When a suspicious family member from the girl`s party tried to question them, they replied that they were taking the items to serve some old people of the boy` s family in the rooms as they were not in a position to come down. When the family member tried to probe them further, they realized that they were cornered. They just rushed out with whatever they had taken from the table. It was a sad sight to see the old couple indulging in such a cheap act.  I felt that they would not have barged in without the collusion of someone in the catering team.

 I think the free loaders are more despicable than the beggars we see on roads!

This article appeared in the Adyar Times issue dt. 18-24^th February,2018 under my column `Rajan`s Random Reflections`

Wrist Watches & Body clocks

I am one of those who likes to wear his wrist watch 24 hours of the day. Except when I am having a bath. Without it I feel lost. And I have this `compulsive obsessive disorder` of looking at my watch every few minutes. A habit which has got me into trouble with a few clients in my long career as an advertising professional.

 I remember once a client admonishing me for this habit. “ Stop looking at your watch all the time……. I want your total attention to what I am saying, If you have to go somewhere please tell me,  we will call off this meeting”. He was really angry. Sheepishly I removed the watch from my wrist and put it into my shirt pocket. Though I apologised, I was finding it extremely difficult to control my urge to pull the watch out of my pocket.

A friend of mine who was in the audience at a meeting I was addressing mentioned to me that he found my habit of constantly looking at the watch during the talk not only distracting but very irritating. I smiled and told him `Habits die hard”

I have a set of three watches which I wear in rotation every few weeks. Imagine my panic when I recently discovered   that not only had the wrist watch I was wearing stopped working, but the spare ones had also stopped. I was listless. In my desperation I rummaged through all the discarded watches kept in a box in my drawer.  While none of the automatics were working I found to my great joy that the first manually operated `Enicar` watch I had owned from my college days started working as soon as I wound the key. Though it was in a really bad shape, look wise, I didn`t care. I immediately wore it and kept it on until I went to a watch repair shop to get one of my regular watches functional.

Another interesting experience I have relates to my  body clock, which most people would have experienced in their life time. In the old days I was a user of the regular alarm clock for  waking me up in the mornings at a fixed time. These days I use my mobile for the same purpose. But I invariably wake up five minutes before the scheduled alarm time. My body clock in action! Once I woke up late to find that not only  the alarm clock had stopped working (or maybe I had failed to hear the alarm) but my body clock too had failed. I discovered that my wrist watch was not on my wrist. Obviously it had fallen off during my sleep. Looks like my body clock failed to work in the absence of the watch on my wrist!!

Most of the younger generation don`t seem to wear wrist watches because they can see the time on their mobiles. I however, find  it easy to look at my watch than at my mobile for checking time.  I have a fetish for time management and my wrist watch is my life line to maintain my reputation as a person who always keeps his time commitments

I think I will add a clause in my will that my family should not remove the watch from my  wrist when they  are taking me on my last journey. You see, I don`t want to be late for my meeting with the LORD!

This article appeared in Adyar Times issue dt 4-10^th February,2018 under my column `Rajan`s  Random Reflections``