Frequently Asked Questions

I have been growing in my popularity. My blog hits have gone up by 100% from two to four. In order to satiate the innate curiosity of my fan, here are the answers to the Frequently Asked Questions. Discerning readers might have noticed the singular Fan in the last sentence. It indicates only one person; me.

Why are you called SalaryMan? Do you have any superpowers?

SalaryMan is the name given to all salaried folks in Japan. It is pronounced as Saa-laa-ri-ma-an in Japanese. You can know more about SalaryMan in here. As far as I know, I have only one superpower; to withdraw money from ATM. I am on a path of self discovery and might figure out other powers on the way.

Are you the only SalaryMan chronicling your life?

I wish I was the only salary man. It would have meant oodles of traffic to my blog and hordes of money from Google adsense. Unfortunately neither is true. One of my ilks who write regularly is http://foreignsalaryman.blogspot.com. The blog is breezy read for someone with a Japanese context.

Who is this Showa?

Again a Japanese context. The calendar in Japan is as per the year of reign of the emperor. I was born in the reign of Showa and hence have decided to give myself the same pseudonym. All great writers have creativity, perseverance, command over language and pseudonym. I thought I will start with the pseudonym. In case you are wondering the current calendar is called Heisei and 2009 is Heisei 21.

You seem to have a Japan hang over? Where do you actually belong to?

I am an Indian by birth. However I am a true blue global citizen and would like to work for the upliftment of everybody starting with me. (Wait, that is a mix up from the speech I am writing for the Miss Universe pageant winner. Guys, I strongly suggest that you visit the page, you will not be disappointed. The operative word here is swimsuit competition.)

You are a very brave person, writing always about your wife. How do you manage to do it?

My bravery is directly attributed to a substance called alcohol. Moreover my wife does not know the URL of the blog.

What will happen when your wife finds it?

As a true blue salaryman, I have a Plan B. I run long distance and am part of a group called Runners for Life. If you see me running hard with a pretty lady chasing me, it means that I have been found out. You can help me by saying to my wife that she was alluded as pretty in my blog.

Why do you want to write a book?

I have been misunderstood. I do not want to write a book. I want to earn millions of dollars. I figured out that there must be somebody out there who will pay me up to shut up.

What part of your writing you are most proud of?

That is a easy one. My five tweets to Gul Panag. She replied twice to me. You can also try it out here. In case you want to follow me and get more URLs like the Miss Universe one, please connect with me on twitter.

When are you going to stop?

I always stop at 500 words on my blog. I am definitely going to write every week till end of 2009. I might disappoint all of you and continue writing afterward too. All I can say is "Sorry".

Balance of Power

This is a flash back. Some of the events mentioned in this post are embellished and could be a figment of my imagination. My wife definitely thinks so. I would let you decide.

I was newly married. Being married was bliss. I could not understand the lament of many of my married friends. Life was a bed of roses except for the aunts. One of things which I abhorred about being newly married is all the old matrons giving a wink and asking "Any good news". My standard answer was always I read times of India's last page and it is filled with only good news with respect to Madonna, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. They seemed to be increasing the population of their household through adoption. My reaction as a newlywed, when I read those news articles was "Lazy folks".

My father had advised me that the first week of the marriage decides the balance of power between the man and the woman. I took the advice very seriously. Hence when my wife brought up the discussion of doing it, my proposition was simple; once a week.

There shall be no excuses like headaches or I am feeling very tired. One of condition was there we should make it interesting with hot water or by trying out different brands. We even tried perfumed ones. The result was there for everyone to see. We became the model couple.

Women of the yore in India like to do it in the sitting posture. I prefer the standing one. One of the things which I like about India is that you can get hired help to do it. Missus and I made a pact to hire a nice person. Not that I did not want to do it.

I would request readers not to get misled. I was only talking about doing dishes here. According to my wife doing the dishes is ultimate proof of my affection to her.

As all married guys know that, it is important to prove your affection at every available opportunity. When my wife complains that my affection for her has diminished over the ages. My favorite come back is that "No way, I came back from the game in 2 hour 50 minutes, instead of 3 hours. I also spoke to you for 2 minutes continuously yesterday".

Two hoots to my father's advice. I do not care about the balance of power as long it can earn brownie points. Bring on the dishes.

PS Glossary: - Perfumed ones is Scented dish washing powder, in case you are wondering.

Bringing Reality into life

All the bright minds in the media industry are figuring out how to bring more reality in to TV shows. They are trying all kinds of stunts like getting actors to bathe under an artificial water fall or getting participants to bare their souls. The actors are ecstatic for getting a real opportunity to remove body odour through natural means. Baring is extremely important in reality TV. If life imitated art instead of the other way round, then the following could happen.

Every day would start with a heart thumping theme song. The titles would run simultaneously showing not one but scores of directors of your life; boss, spouse, teachers, children and Mother (in-law).

Life would become fairly uncomplicated and full of peace. Whenever my wife asks me to get out plates out for dinner, I uncannily pick up the wrong ones.

"Have you ever seen me put out these plates for guests"

"Er, No"

"Sometimes I wonder whether you live in the same house"

"Hmm"

I would then pick up another set of wrong plates. Life could be less interesting if we are able to cut out the 12 takes it takes me to put out the proper cutlery. The scene would be rewritten

"Wow, the place mats are perfect and the water is filled to the right level"

"Does that mean that I get to hog the TV remote without guilt?" I never miss a chance to cash any brownie points scored.

The possibilities are endless

1. We can have auditions to hire house help
   
2. I can scream "Let us meet on the other side of the commercial break" in case I am on verge of losing an argument which is very often.
   
3. We can get paid for multiple product placements around the house.
   
4. We can get the entire family to vote through SMS or Tweets on "who makes the best bed in the house".
   
5. We can call visits by Mother-in-laws as a wild card entry.
   
6. We can judge each other's chemistry and then blame it on the script
   
7. You can actually have a voice over from the Father when the spouse says that "You sound exactly like your Father "
   
8. We can introduce the guests in the house with flourish and actually get away by saying "The guest tonight is Mr. so and so and he would like to promote the sure shot way to beat the stock markets"
   
9. We can fire lots of complicated questions at the guests without repercussions. I would definitely like to ask "You gave me a PC game for the Birthday. Was it a recycled present?"
   
10. More importantly, you get to change the channels. All fellow males have a gene which makes us flip channels every 15 seconds. Just when the life would get interesting in the history channel when you forgot you spouse' birthday few years back, you can flip to the cooking show.
    

Go ahead and let your imagination rip and send me your possibilities. You and your thought could be featured on Salarymantale.

Also, please get in touch with me in case you would like to illustrate for my blog. It could then become our blog. You can get in touch me on my gmail account – Jaiseeker.

Running Jacks have a podium finish

I live in a very beautiful community called Jacaranda in a large apartment complex - Brigade Millennium. We formed a running team on the fly (with in 24 hours) to take part in the 4 x 5 KM relay race. The race was a mock up to the corporate relay race - Urban Stampede to be held two weeks later.

It was at a resort called Olde which is close to the Bangalore International Airport. The team consisting of Vinayak, Rohan, Subbu and myself assembled on time at 4:25 AM. Since we do every thing in style, we were accompanied by a Manager - Ram Prasad. The only team to do so. We did not equip ourselves with walkies talkies because our Manager pointed out the fate of Hansie Cronje when he used it.

The race was to start at 6 AM and that is what I thought at least. However the way I misread women's emotion, I misread the time too. We left the apartment complex at 4:45 and reached the resort at 5:25 and that is when I realized that the race was at 7 not 6. Thankfully the registration started at 6:15. The race was professionally arranged by Runners for Life, with batons, split timings, water stops etc.

The weather was really nice and the resort looks good. We decided that Subbu will start the race and pass the baton to Vinayak. I will run third and Rohan will anchor the race.We did a recce of the finishing lap before the start of the race.

The race started at 7 past 7. The race was on a pucca road but passing fields and nurseries. An occasional car or bike were the only things to remind us that we were in urban Bangalore. The course went uphill all the way till the U - turn point. It crossed some High Tension wires on the way which were making a constant hiss sound. The way back was down hill and hence easier.

Subbu and our Manager Ram ran with me during my leg. Subbu acted as my pace setter. It was incredible for Ram to do 5K on his first run ever. Way to go.


Subbu : 27:44
Vinayak : 29:48
Jai : 28:17
Rohan : 26:08

At a total timing of 1:51:57 we had a second rank podium finish. We could have done better as Subbu missed the entry to the resort and Rohan missed the return point of the race. The photograph of the proud runners' up with the team Manager

L to R: Subbu, Jai, Rohan, Ram Prasad, Vinayak

As my regular readers know that "Not only - but also combination" is the only grammar rule I know. Here is an example of my grammatical prowess.

Thanks a lot to Subbu who not only drove us all the way but also fed us. I am thankful to Ram who not only looks much younger than his age but also infused infectious enthusiasm in to the team. I should definitely thank cool dudes Rohan and Vinayak who not only helped us to the podium finish but decreased the average team age by 40%. :-)

Desperately seeking

I am desperately seeking illustrators for my blog. If you like my blog, draw well and do not have any hopes of getting paid, you fit like a T to the job description. You might be mildly famous though with around 500 hits on the blog every month. Please get in touch with me at google mail id; jaiseeker.

Living

One of the most influential thought I have ever imbibed is that Life does not have any automatic purpose. One needs to infuse life with purpose. Setting a goal and achieving it, creates a tremendous sense of accomplishment and a mental orgasm. Here is how I achieve it.

Running

All it requires is a pair of shoes and will. The Universe provides for the remaining most important equipment – Earth. I add Music to the list. The possibilities of setting goals in Running are endless; Number of times in a week, Speed, Distance. I took to running by chance. It also started off something I really enjoy – writing. My first blog piece was on Running.

I am currently between jobs. As a long time SalaryMan, I miss being a Corporate Warrior and waging email wars. Running has been one of the corner stone which has allowed me to be happy in a dark period. It not only gives me the Runners' high but also allows me to bask in accomplishments; Running 4 times a week, running long distances (10 to 14 KM) on one weekends. What makes it better is that I run with my dear friends. The oft repeated sentence after each run is "Life does not get better"

I run to achieve two life objectives; Short term goal of running 1000 KM in 2009 and the long term goal of running a Marathon. As a gadget geek, I own Nike Plus which tracks my progress on the life's purpose. Check it out.

Writing

Writing for me is the ultimate journey of discovery of self. Creating a written thought gives me unbelievable pleasure . Writing makes me a creator, albeit for a short period of time. It opens up endless possibilities to surprise myself. It is still astounding that I could write about walking ice trays, naming potholes, Cosmopolitan.

I write to achieve two life objectives; Write a blog post every week in 2009 and write a book and earn lots of money from it. The ultimate token of appreciation of creation is that somebody is willing to exchange hard earned money to read your thoughts.

Reading

Reading is consciously participating in a creation of somebody else. It is a luxury that you can actively take part in any era (past, present or future) or any emotion of the writer's choosing. For me it is like the author has extended a warm welcome in to his private domain of thoughts. It creates a sense of gratitude in me.

I read to achieve two life objectives; Read the complete Harry Potter series to my son and the long term objective is simple – Retain the faculty to read as long as I live.

Thought to complete this blog post – "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is being asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible". This thought is written by Victor Frankl.

Blue to Red

This is to warn that this post is not about Matrix. You will definitely not learn Taekwondo in fifteen seconds. Your life will not be changed by reading this. This is about changing from Blue to Red. I have always been a blue person. I always felt that blue symbolized the corporate cool. It coincided with my personal goal of ending up in the top freezer in the corporate world – The ultimate salary man. Blue was conservative and indicated inner peace, so I thought.

The following anecdote would make it clear. I was married when I relocated to Tokyo in the late nineties. The plan was that I will go first and my wife Radhika would join later (I have been instructed by Radhika to prefix her name by “My wife” to remove any misgivings that she is a living in partner. By the way, the position is till vacant).

She had warned me not to buy things for the house before she comes to Japan. She is definitely not going to miss acting out her child fantasy of playing House. As an obedient spouse, I adhered to her warning. However I bought curtains for the house. I had to. It was not only to protect my modesty but also more importantly to save Japanese lives. I did not want good Japanese folks to die of shock when they saw my nonexistent biceps.

The whole house was barren except for the nice curtains. When Radhika stepped in to the house, I was like the new bride, anxiously waiting for the mother in law’s approval. She looked at the curtains and remarked “Yew! It looks like a hospital”. I took it as a compliment. I was a die-hard blue guy.

However things are changing as I am approaching Forty. I am not talking about receding hair lines and the nubile young ones calling you uncle. I am talking about repressed red desire exploding in to consciousness.

My prized position is a red shirt. It is so Red that my friends want me to forewarn them in case I am wearing it. Some of them have become my followers in Twitter just because of that. The entire gathering looks like Matrix, wearing glares. Unlike me they still have not swallowed Red pill – Poor blue uncles.