I visited a friend whose daughter is getting married at the end of the month. “No one should ever take up a job in the banking industry!” she wailed. “Look at my daughter. The wedding is three weeks away and she comes home every day post 9 pm, and she often goes to work on Sundays too…and I am trying to get her to make her trousseau…it’s such a problem! She should have been in the software industry…such a cushy life, they get paid so well, and they have those long weekends too…”

Then a young friend came over. “No one should be a geek!” he said. “I have been struggling to finish this job for a client and things are just not going properly. Look at these people who have cushy government jobs…they don’t do a stroke of work…”

And just now, my neighbour (a real one this time!) came over to show me the prizes her son had won. “I am just unable to cope!” she cried. “Going and helping out with my husband’s work at office, taking these children to their various classes…I wish I had an easy job like these Security guys I just passed at the gate..they just sit around and earn their salary!”

I passed the Security guy just now as I went to the shops. The poor guy was pleading with the supervisor to give him an advance; he had to pay his children’s school fees and had a lot of debts…he didn’t say anything to me, but if he could have, I am sure he would have mentioned another job (perhaps the paani-puri wallah, whose daily earnings depend on whether or not it rains!)which, in his opinion, was a cushy one!

So folks…the grass is just as brown and dry on the other side…!

MY problems? Oh, I don’t have any, I just sail blithely through life, you know! At least, that’s what others seem to think…if you don’t constantly gripe about your troubles, the assumption is that you don’t have any…like another of my friends, who has just battled with cancer, only to have someone tell her that since she lives in a large house and has a good job, she is SO lucky in life…she just smiled at me, because she doesn’t talk about herself much!

So to cheer everyone up, here’s a pretty picture…taken in L.A, last year…