"Look! An elephant."

"Look! An elephant." 

A normal statement for most, if you live in India. The presence is majestic, even when you see the wetness around the eyes. But wait, what the heck is wrong with Rat? Is he becoming a PETA activist? Nah, I just thought I'd grab some attention there.

Moving on, the reason I thought of it is because I saw one yesterday on the road. The wedding season is upon us and elephants in a wedding procession always represent royalty. The elephants are trained to not react to the fireworks, brass bands, drums and blingy clothes, apparently.

There is a Buddhist story about a king who gets blind men to touch touch and elephant and describe it:
"The men assert the elephant is either like a pot (the blind man who felt the elephants' head), a winnowing basket (ear), a plowshare (tusk), a plow (trunk), a granary (body), a pillar (foot), a mortar (back), a pestle (tail) or a brush (tip of the tail)." 
(details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant)

We are all bound by our perception, depending on which sense we rely most upon on a daily basis. I used to think that I am better than most with my education and upbringing and I can always see the bigger picture. Fortunately, that notion was shattered as I matured. It comes with a price though, if you have spent your cognitive years alienating people sitting on your high-elephant, chances are, there's no one around to share your 'maturity' with.

Which brings me to why I am writing this. I joined twitter because of what I perceived everyday, some bad, some worse. I followed people who were just as miserable with things. That lasted about a month and thanks to the funnies, I have changed my daily observations to be sometimes good, sometimes great. Don't get me wrong, the world is still the big bad wolf that is trying to get us all, but I am glad that 2000 people feel that at least I am on their side. Thank you all for following and 'listening'.

So what does an elephant mean to me? I always have associated just one memory with it, driving cross country with my parent's pointing out different animals to us brothers. And hopefully, I can do the same one day,
"Look kiddo, an elephant."

5 minutes can last a lifetime.

"What is the definition of work?"

The words still haunt me. Been a long time, but I have not forgotten the countless excuses that I thought of to deflect it. The first one was, "This is not part of the syllabus."

What I really wanted to say was, "If I knew the answer to this, I wouldn't be sitting here facing you with a look of failure, Mr. Engineer Man!" I was taught different though, respect the authority. The stern look told me that BS was not acceptable this time. I had flunked my physics exam and someone was going to pay for this. It was going to be me. "I don't know," I replied, eventually.

"Its Force times Distance," he said.
I sat there, reflecting on the relevance of the answer to my situation and the next sentence drove home the point. "I see you studying, but the achievement is zero. You are pushing against a wall, applying a lot of force but have not moved it a bit. Distance = zero. Force X 0 = 0. Which is what you have."

I resented the humiliation and resented my mother for sending me to the lion's den. Luckily no one was around to see it. It made sense and thought I had found a better excuse. I am just bad at pushing a wall.
6 years later, I had aced every physics exam at the university. I was the curve wrecker a few of times.

I forget to thank my father sometimes for teaching me the value of moving the wall, instead of just pushing at it. That 5 minute lecture has taught me more than any physics professor could have ever taught me.