Foreword: What follows is pure fantasy, and bears no resemblance to what actually happened. But happiness also includes occasional delusions, so what the heck!
I have taught the various women in my life the following things. Just my way of thanking them for everything.
Budgeting
This consisted of the basic course on budgets, and the advanced course on budgets. The basic course on budgets consists of the following sentence- There is a budget for everything. The advanced course consists of one more sentence. If you exceed the budget on item A, that money has to come out of item B. Repeat about 20,000 times..in a year. Most of them understood, and I would say this was effective, on the whole.
Prioritising
This essentially was about a hierarchy of Needs or Ranking by Importance. If something is going to kill you, Importance Rating is 5, on a five point scale. If you will survive without doing something, rating is 1, 2 or 3. Ratings will decide what you will do in a day. Other facts of the matter are – A day has 24 hours in it. After that, you have to postpone things to the next day. Auxiliary learnings are that plumbers, electricians, carpenters, gas repairmen, drivers, belong to an alien species with a mind of their own, and descend into earthly abodes only as an occasional favour to mankind at a time of their own choosing. Men are not accountable for the vagaries of aliens. Nice and easy, and they understood.
Getting Dressed in Time
Here, I led by example, and always got dressed in about 3 minutes, and used the ‘demonstration effect’ to good effect. It worked, instantly.
Limiting the Number of Bags, Shoes, Cosmetics and Sundry Other Possessions
Here I gave examples of what can happen to Imelda Marcos’s of the world. You can actually lose your throne if you have too many shoes, and someone finds out. About cosmetics, I cited the example of a Cosmetics Queen who herself resembles Hidimbaa (a female demon from mythology), and impressed upon them that natural beauty has no parallels in chemically altered faces and lips. This was interspersed with speeches from Gandhiji’s autobiography, and also Ramdev Baba’s diatribe against multinational companies. Worked like a charm, I must say.
The Older Generation.
Note that I am saying ‘older’, because I am aware of the fact that I am young no more. The older generation of women, I have taught not to repeat stories of my childhood (particularly the unflattering ones), stories of their own childhood, and stories of what was the price of a kilo (or is it a quintal?) of rice during their time. They all agreed that after about 400 repeats, it could get a bit tedious.
I have taught the various women in my life the following things. Just my way of thanking them for everything.
Budgeting
This consisted of the basic course on budgets, and the advanced course on budgets. The basic course on budgets consists of the following sentence- There is a budget for everything. The advanced course consists of one more sentence. If you exceed the budget on item A, that money has to come out of item B. Repeat about 20,000 times..in a year. Most of them understood, and I would say this was effective, on the whole.
Prioritising
This essentially was about a hierarchy of Needs or Ranking by Importance. If something is going to kill you, Importance Rating is 5, on a five point scale. If you will survive without doing something, rating is 1, 2 or 3. Ratings will decide what you will do in a day. Other facts of the matter are – A day has 24 hours in it. After that, you have to postpone things to the next day. Auxiliary learnings are that plumbers, electricians, carpenters, gas repairmen, drivers, belong to an alien species with a mind of their own, and descend into earthly abodes only as an occasional favour to mankind at a time of their own choosing. Men are not accountable for the vagaries of aliens. Nice and easy, and they understood.
Getting Dressed in Time
Here, I led by example, and always got dressed in about 3 minutes, and used the ‘demonstration effect’ to good effect. It worked, instantly.
Limiting the Number of Bags, Shoes, Cosmetics and Sundry Other Possessions
Here I gave examples of what can happen to Imelda Marcos’s of the world. You can actually lose your throne if you have too many shoes, and someone finds out. About cosmetics, I cited the example of a Cosmetics Queen who herself resembles Hidimbaa (a female demon from mythology), and impressed upon them that natural beauty has no parallels in chemically altered faces and lips. This was interspersed with speeches from Gandhiji’s autobiography, and also Ramdev Baba’s diatribe against multinational companies. Worked like a charm, I must say.
The Older Generation.
Note that I am saying ‘older’, because I am aware of the fact that I am young no more. The older generation of women, I have taught not to repeat stories of my childhood (particularly the unflattering ones), stories of their own childhood, and stories of what was the price of a kilo (or is it a quintal?) of rice during their time. They all agreed that after about 400 repeats, it could get a bit tedious.
2 comments:
Ambitious project certainly. And I must add that the world's a better place thanks to your efforts (rest of us guys can take appropriate leaves out of your book). All in all, deserves the bravery award.
Always willing to do my bit, or two.
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