Innocence Lost??

I always wondered what differentiates the offspring of Indian diaspora who opt to make a living in such far flung places as the Middle East; countries in unstable but oil rich countries in Africa such as Nigeria and Sierra Leone. I suspect one of the subconscious goals of expatriate Indians is to secure the future of their children.
Who else, but the son of an expatriate NRI can boast of driving an imported car by the time he is just out of his teens, or secure a prized seat in a prestigious college?
But what are the long term effects on the children? I don't think their parents gave much thought to this when they opted to fly off to alien lands.
The children confined to the airconditioned rooms of their flats miss out on the innocent pleasures of childhood. I know of children reared up in the middle east afraid of letting their feet touch sand! It is anathema to them, used as they are to the smooth floors of their dwellings, the carpeted cars that transport them to wherever they wish to and the marbled schooling institutions where they spend much of their time.
No playing with sand, no experiments with water and clay, no breath of fresh air outside their confined spaces!
Innocence lost!
Everyman poses an interesting observation - one he made on his sojourn to Saudi Arabia a few years back-
<quote>
The times arent changing, we are just getting smarter at an earlier age. But would that make us duller at an earlier age too? I wonder...
</quote>
The full post here
http://everymansdiary.blogspot.com/2007/02/just-kidding.html

Validating the sex field- FUN at work

It was a boring day at the office. We were doing some validation stuff on a couple of web pages. The team clown was doing some UI work on a page that had a textfield asking the user to enter his/ her sex. The valid options were Male, Female, Not Applicable.
The validation stuff done, the clown was trying to come up with an error message to display to the user on invalid entry.
"Sex is required", he muttered to himself.
The team wit laughed out loud and repeated, "Of course, SEX is required!".
The clown then said, how about "Sex is mandatory?"
"Yeah", echoed the wit, "SEX is mandatory."
Now we were all in splits.
Suddenly the team whiz came running into the cubicle with breaking news. "The requirements have changed. Sex is no longer mandatory, it is optional."
We all cried out loud in unision. "Of course, SEX is not required, it is optional."
So much for boring work hours.

Passport to Gaol

It was during my last month at my gig in Germany that I got an urgent mail from my brother saying that my father wanted to talk to me on an important issue.
A bit puzzled, I called India after work, from the office phone (the money for phone calls was deducted from my salary by the shrewd German overseer).
The first thing my father wanted to know was whether I had applied for my passport twice. I was bewildered. No, I replied. My father went on to inform me that the local police had come a-visting twice to my home in Kerala wanting to know whether I had committed the crime of applying twice for a passport.
I didn't take the matter too seriously at that moment. I was convinced it was a routine blunder by the police which they are so bound to make. I told my father I was sure this was some bureaucratic blunder and would sort itself out.
When I returned home to India, the police came visiting again. I was not at home. They informed my father that I had applied for a passport twice and they wanted to investigate. My father called me on my mobile and I talked to the police person who quizzed me on my passport number and other details. With a straight face I told him all I could. Then, a bit annoyed, I retorted, saying they were the people who had my passport details on their records and that I found it strange them asking me about it.
The policeperson was not impressed.
A few weeks later I got a letter from the regional passport office saying that they would have to confiscate my existing passport since I had committed the crime of applying for a passport twice. I made two trips all the way to the passport office at the State headquarters and met the passport officer in charge who said that the police had reported that two attempts were made to secure passports and the law would follow course. I even showed him a copy of the application letter that I had written out for the passport and tried to make him understand that I had no interest and no valid reason for filling out a second application. All this fell on deaf ears.
The next time the police came a hunting (again I was out) my Dad shelled out a couple of hundred rupees. The policeman realising that nothing more could be gained from this venerable looking gentleman quietly took the money and left.
There ended the mystery of the double passport applications.
The strange tale did not end there.
While waiting for my train home at Kochi railway station I found myself sitting next to a middle aged man. He was just on his way back from the regional passport office at Kochi. And he had a tale to tell similar to mine. He had been in the middle east for a good many years and when his passport was about to expire, applied for a fresh one. But he was now charged with illegally applying for a passport twice. And he faced the same punishment - confiscation of his passport.
But he said with determination - "I am ready to go to court on this matter, but I shall not bribe a policeman to get things sorted out." Brave words from an Indian, in a land where court cases are prolonged to no end and are a waste of both time energy and will power.
what other ways would these goons come up with, I wondered, to make a few extra bucks?