"That game is a waste of money, V, trust me!" [Republished]

"That game is a waste of money, V, trust me!" I told my then 7-year-old daughter.

It was her 7th birthday, and we had taken her out for some fun and games at her favorite place, which was filled with electronic games.

"Alright, V, we’ve played a lot of games now. Let’s head out for dinner," I said after a while. 

They are never happy when they are told such things so I got the usual eye roll. "Papa, can I please play that one? I know I can win this time," she insisted, flashing one of those adorable expressions she knows works on me like a charm.

She was pointing at a claw machine—the one where you maneuver a dangling claw to pick up prizes. As a kid (and even as an adult), I’ve almost never won anything from those machines. Every time she had asked to play it before, I would tell her it was a waste of money because they rarely yield anything, but this time, the birthday girl was more persistent. I gave in, but with one condition: I would help her position the claw. (Funny, considering I’ve always failed at it. Bad decision, I know.)

She agreed, and I carefully positioned the claw over a pack of tickets. "Alright, press the button now," I instructed, confident in my ‘expert’ positioning. But before I could react, she swiftly adjusted the claw’s position herself and hit the button. I raised my hands in protest... but, miraculously, the claw picked up not one, not two, but three bundles of tickets!

After some victory cries, we rushed to the ticket eater machine. (For the uninitiated, the ticket eater counts the tickets, and at the end, you swipe a card to add the total to your balance. These tickets can be redeemed for prizes.) The counter showed 300+ tickets, and we were ecstatic! We ran to the rest of the family, proudly announcing our achievement.

I then quickly went to check the ticket balance on our card, and to my shock, the 300+ tickets weren’t showing up! That’s when it hit me—when we saw the figure of 300+ on the ticket eater, I was so excited to share the news that I completely forgot to swipe the card to credit the tickets!

I rushed back to the counter and saw two kids jumping with joy... They had just fed their tickets into the machine and had probably ended up adding our 300+ tickets to their card as well.

Learnings:

1. Just because you couldn’t do it doesn’t mean the juniors can’t either.

2. Don’t interfere too much, especially after point 1. They might just do it their way—and maybe even better.

3. Excitement is great, but it can cloud your judgment. If not managed well, it might lead to losing everything in the heat of the moment.

4. Sometimes, people benefit from others' mistakes without intending to. Lady Luck plays her games, and on such occasions, the best you can do is smile and accept it gracefully.

"What do we buy with the tickets?" she asked eagerly.

"Erm… let’s accumulate some more and get something more meaningful next time," I replied, placing an arm around her shoulder as we walked out...

"Agar tum mil jao, zamana…" she sang

"Agar tum mil jao, zamana…" she sang, her voice flowing softly over the bus speakers.

It was around 8 a.m. on a morning in 2006. My roommates and I had just boarded the company bus from Aundh (Pune) that would take us to our Infosys office in Hinjewadi.

"Did you read about that email from NRN (Narayana Murthy)? It says don’t stay in the office beyond 8 p.m.," one of the guys said, adjusting his blue-striped tie, which looked sharp against his white shirt. Mon to Thurs, we were required to wear a tie (except during the summer).

At the time, an email was making the rounds at Infy. It claimed that unmarried folks stayed late at the office just to surf the net and kill time. The mail advised against such practices and encouraged everyone to leave on time. Recently, I learned that the email was just a piece of someone’s creativity—NRN had never written it.

As the bus moved, my mind wandered back to my training days in Mysore. It was Dec 2005, and NRN had come to address thousands of us at the open-air amphitheater. "Please don't call me sir," he had politely requested when one of us stood up to ask a question. We were in awe of him—a man who had built Infy, an incredible organization that hired freshers like us and transformed us into polished professionals.

"Look, she just boarded the bus," I heard a guy say softly from the seat behind me, as two smartly dressed girls stepped onto the bus, breaking my train of thought and snapping me back to the present.

As I gazed out of the window, my thoughts drifted to an incident that had occurred a few days ago back home in Mumbai. I had a minor altercation with an elderly uncle in our society. Mom had been a silent witness to it. Later, she gently said, "Beta, as adults grow older, they start behaving like children again. It's a cycle. They get upset over small things and may say things that seem irrational. You need to let it go—just like you would if a child acted that way."

A few weeks ago, when newspapers, channels, and influencers all jumped on the NRN-bashing bandwagon, I couldn’t help but recall what my mom had said years ago. While I don’t agree with his recent opinion, as an ex-Infoscion, I knew it was important to look at the bigger picture and let the episode go. NRN is undeniably one of the greats, and though public figures are expected to be more cautious with their words, age inevitably leaves its mark on everyone. Sometimes, the elderly may say things that come across as irrational or unpopular, but such moments can often be dismissed for what they are—an occasional lapse due to age, nothing more.

"Tu hi meri shab hai…" began playing over the bus speakers. "Yaar, yeh Emraan Hashmi ke saare gaane kya gajab hote hain," remarked the guy sitting next to me. [Emraan Hashmi’s songs are amazing.] "Haan yaar, woh toh hai," I replied with a smile [Yeah buddy, that’s true.], as the distinctive green ‘gola’—the spaceship-shaped office building that housed my desk—came into view in the distance...