a manchurian tale...

An excerpt from the book on Behavioral Economics I was reading a couple of days back:

“We overestimate the likelihood: of something that we can easily imagine, especially if it would be particularly frightening, like a plane crash or particularly exciting, like winning the lottery; of something that has given us a short-lived extreme experience; or of something we have recently experienced. Likewise we underestimate the likelihood of things that happen relatively often.”

It reminded me of the latest conversation I had with Dindu 1 2. It was his birth day last week. Capricorn, you see! His Lazy Ass is very proud of being capricious Capricorn. I asked him what gift he wanted for his b’day. And guess what… no no no… you won’t be able to guess… He wanted me to courier gobhi-manchurian from the flyover-bakery at Hyderabad to his beach house in Thiruvannmayur, Chennai. Can you believe it? Even beyond the wildest and remotest of imaginations! I can say Dindu will do anything for that gobhi-machurian. He suffers from such pristine hunger for this Indo-Chinese hybrid dish that he will even kill anyone for you if you offer him flyover-bakery’s gobhi-manchurian. After gobhi-manchurian, kothu-parantha comes next in his I-will-kill-for-it list. Oh! But this is not about that, this much was just to increase the length of this post which otherwise could have ended only after the first paragraph.

Allegedly, Dindu has been given the option (i.e. euphemistically, an ultimatum) by his parents that he should either find a girl of his choice by his next birthday or he will be emotionally and tangibly cuffed with the girl of their choice. Woho! Can I get the email id of Karan Johar? I think I have a real life story for him and SRK taking shape - "Chuk de Dindu".

Upon that, Dindu has been told by his family astrologer that if he marries before seeing (i.e. euphemistically, rejecting) twelve girls, it will not be good for his post nuptial life. Somewhat like King Kansa who was told by aakashvaani (radio waves of mythological era) that he will be killed by thirteenth (??) son of Vasudeva! The astrologer left him wondering (the reflection of first paragraph) what will happen to him if he marries less than or equal to twelfth girl he comes to see and know of. Will his married life be that of a chivalrous and beloved hubby (particularly exciting) or he will become an uxorious partner or even worse be labeled a cuckold of worst sort (particularly frightening). That’s what is meant by “overestimating the likelihood of something one can easily imagine…” Dindu just knows he has to go a long way - 12!!! Wish him luck...

When I ask him how much dakshina he gave to the astrologer he refuses to tell me. I guess he has been… you know… I don’t know about how his planets are placed in his birth chart, but I can say his rational brain and thinking cells are a little misplaced for the time being…

Anyhow, myob is slowly becoming my philosophy. So I have stopped giving advices to already overloaded poor Dindu. It’s natural that if one gets overloaded with choices, often one ends up making no choice at all. And that’s where Dindu is right now. Spending most of his weekends at the Chennai beach, wandering aimlessly, wondering why he wonders what he wonders…