Rat race, cat race, dog race

Yesterday morning, I realised what a lofty place competition holds in our lives.
As usual, I went to the gym (Ahem, Yes, I do it regularly). I was running, and my eyes were constantly on the speedometer on the treadmill next to mine, (In case, you are wondering, yes, the guy was hot, but that's not what we're talking about here, lets focus! ). He was running at 10 Km/Hr speed and I was looking at my measly 7 and thinking, if he can run, why can't I? (I can't, by the way, a painful discovery) Meanwhile, rolu polu uncle on the left side was looking into my speedometer, with an expression so stern, it was almost tragic, I don't know whether it ws because he had a terminally turned neck or whatever, but just for the sake of my post, I'm assuming that he was thinking this,
"This sonkal kaddi can run run at 7, what am I doing at 4.7??"

Competition is always there, isn't it? Atleast in  my case, it is. Through out my life, it has haunted me, never let me live peacefully. Maybe I'm an ego-maniac, maybe I think that the work that I'm doing is so very terribly important, even though at any point in life I've not been sure of what it is that I did, or doing, or will do.

Anyway, what was I saying?
Yeah, competition.

In school, my friend got half a mark more than me in a nonsensical english exam, She was on leave that fateful day, and you know what I did? I dug deep into the paper, chewed on every single word and finally got the teacher to cut 2 marks from her paper. But this was more due to hatred than competittion, She used to piss me off and I didn't want to hear about that half a mark for another half year. My teacher rolled her eyes, and called it, "CP". I didn't understand it, neither did another friend who had a 3 Rs lens in her hand. We can find out more mistakes, she said with an evil mogambo type laugh.

By the way, CP meant cheap pleasures.

Yes, it was due to hatred, but boy, was I happy that I scored more than her! (Yes, I was a little demented)

Before, you go all "Swami Sukhabodhananda" on me, let me tell you that this is the one of the very few nasty things I've done (hahahahhahahaha).

Aeons later, bloody engineering happened, like it happened to ritu, pitu, pinku, rinku and rinku's donkey who successfully got admission in one of Bangalore's top engineering colleges, but refused to go because he had his eyes set on IIT. Anyway, not being as noble as Donkey Genius, I went ahead and enrolled myself. Being good at essay writing, and having absolute zero technical skills, I didn't have a tough time excelling there. I didn't even need to do evil things (I had a few up my sleeve), all thanks to the Indian education system. By the way, congrats on beating Kazakhsthan, Awesome Job!

Then came office. Here, the competition got fiercer. In the first year, what with there being no marks cards and stuff, I just lazed around, wasted time happily. For the first time, I was free from internals, externals, midterms, shit terms and all that. I was basking in it. Then, suddenly god slapped a more horrible thing into my face. It was called, "Rating". Okay fine, I thought to myself, no biggie, I'll do well. Then I did do well, but guess what? I got the worst rating possible, because "work" in office has an entirely different definition. Now, will you please excuse me while I go "talk" to my manager? (I was ignorant and paid a hefty price for it) 

Anyway, all this nostalgia came running down my nose when I read that MLAs in Karnataka were trying to milk Ipad3s from the common tax payer (yea, you and me!) , because MLCs here were given Ipad2s. (My god, What blatant injustice!! shrieked Kamalamma, MLA from Bagewadi)

First of all, will the real slim shady please stand up and tell Kamalamma and her band of jokers that there is no such thing as Ipad3?
May be, they will all write an attested letter to Steve Jobs to release Ipad3 at the earliest. I don't think they know or care that he's dead.

Secondly, this is what I call competition! Ego at its finest. Love these politicians!