Third World Rants

On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons.
~ The Book
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The Japanese have it all ... Fastest trains, biggest roads ,most reliable cars ,tallest buildings, radical electronics ,cleanest cities, best subways, and the longest lifespans to enjoy it all ... In short , they are the pinnacle of progress mankind has made on Gods green earth ... Or are they ??

The people of Japan have impressed me no end ... That they are sticklers for quality and detail is no secret ... Nor is the fact that they are complete workaholics ... Normal office timings here are till 10:30 - 11 in the night!!! What that means is that they have no time for family ... While chatting with one of my colleagues, I happened to ask him if he had kids ...His response - " I want to, but I don’t get time... every night I get home really late and my wife is already asleep" ...Although I appreciate him being so candid about his sex life, I thought it was too much information ... I also thought he was quite a loser... C’mon ... Work ethic and all aside, what good is your life if you cant give some of that "Kamikaze Love" to you wife ... I had always thought the Japanese to have some seriously kick ass Samurai moves ... You know the kinds they show on Japanese porn ... With the guy flying in the air and doing a triple somersault and the chic doing a reverse back flip ... And here was this guy telling me he gets too "Tired" ... What an anti climax (no pun intended)
The way Japs do business is also quite different ... As the wise and knowledgeable I the Absolute would vehemently argue ,pleasing clients in some cases requires one to take them to places which aren’t very honorable (read ladies bars)...
Turns out, in Japan they are perfectly honorable!!! So when a partner offered to take me out to a "ladies bar" , I was understandably quite excited (and also quite scared at the prospect of Mrs. prefect coming to know about my lil outing) ...Neways , we get to this place called The Seventh Heaven (quite aptly named I thought) and what I see is a seriously posh place , with suit clad businessmen sitting on sofas and talking to very pretty but totally clothed girls ... Basically their concept of ladies bars , unlike ours is devoid of any vulgarity or sexual undertones ... And at 500 dollars per person, I thought it was a monumental waste of money ... The whole thing was so innocent , I called up Mrs. Prefect and told her about it myself !!! I did make a couple of friends though ... Miss Misaki was one of the few girls there who could speak English and she helped me make a cheat sheet of Japanese words which she thought I should know to survive in Tokyo... But the highlight of the evening was a Bottle of Remy Martin that the partner ordered... Man that’s one smooth cognac...
Which Brings me back to the topic of this post …So here we are ... Indians ... With messed up roads, dirt ,potholes, bombs, corruption, poverty , filth and disease ...Basically mucking around , while the world has gone ahead and done so much ... And Yet , all I can think right now is to go home, get inside my puny lil Hyundai Accent and drive Mrs. Prefect to the filthy Juhu beach so that she can eat that disgusting Pani Puri she so loves ... May be I should get my head examined ... Or may be Douglas is right again ;-) ...