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Peter principle by Laurence J. Peter and R Suttton!

Ebook and a very interesting concept! Now of course the book is written by someone called Peter though like Murphy’s law it could be the father or the son!

Even here like Murphy’s laws you have a back story since the original Peter Principle was like a series of articles based on the thoughts of Dr Peter who emphasized it on Lewis Sutton who is the father of R Sutton! This was because the Peter Principal came as an epiphany to L Sutton one fine day!That is the forward!

Now do not get overwhelmed! It is interesting and funny in a dark humour kind of way!

So in case you are planning to read the book then this is a preview only and if you do not want to read it then this is a summary of the relevant points!

The basic principle is that everyone in an organization reaches to his or her own level of incompetence and peaks!

Imagine a cricketer who is a great batsman, he or she would be promoted higher up the order and finally may even be made the captain! But it is seen that as he or she gets promoted higher and higher, he or she will finally reach a position where he or she will actually underperform!

Even in an office, you can have a person who is doing a great job at entry level! Then as and when he or she is promoted, he or she will reach a peak and then he or she will get a job in which he or she may not do a good job!

It is like the credit card scam! Your credit limit is at first a very low but easily achievable limit! You are then given an option to slowly and steadily increase your spending limit! Till you reach a point when you can no longer pay the limit! That is when they pounce on you!

Even in government jobs it is seen that a person who has been appointed because of a certain skill is given more and more responsibilities but then finally it will reach a point when the work suffers and how!

A person is good in a job then he is promoted to a better position till he or she reaches a plateau! or actually starts performing worse at the elevated position!

These are examples of Peter Principle which actually notes that every employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence! It actually concludes that every job in a hierarchical organization will be filled by a person who is incompetent!

The Peter principle hence states that a person who is competent at their job will earn a promotion to a position that requires different skills. If the promoted person lacks the skills required for the new role, they will be incompetent at the new level, and will not be promoted again.
If the person is competent in the new role, they will be promoted again and will continue to be promoted until reaching a level at which they are incompetent. Being incompetent, the individual will not qualify for promotion again, and so will remain stuck at this final placement or Peter’s plateau!

This outcome is inevitable, given enough time and enough positions in the hierarchy to which competent employees may be promoted. The Peter principle is therefore expressed as: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
This leads to Peter’s corollary: “In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.”

Which means that everyone does a primary job well as he or she is supposed to do! Later on they are given added responsibility and with each step they do the work well till they are promoted and given more and more responsibility till the time they reach a point when the work is incompetent! That is the stopping point! The Horror is that this applies to the managers of big firms and the officials in a government place! So the chief and the heads are actually reached point in which they are actually incompetent!

A solution has been suggested by the author that the person in such a position must be offered the position just one level below the current position and he or she will be competent in that!


Larger the hierarchy the easier the lateral arabesque or pseudo promotion! The incompetent employee is given a longer title and moved to a office in a remote part of the building with the Same salary or maybe a little hike! !

Case of levitation! Director with a huge salary but no one to manage! Suspended without a base to support! He is given a big job with office and perks but shunted to a place where he cannot disturb anyone!


Peter tells the story of Michael Patrick O Brien who was kept for 11 months on a ferry boat plying between Hong Kong and Macao because of a travel issue!

This leads to another interesting phenomenon especially in the Government sector! There are some forms which serve no purpose other than waste time energy and money! But incompetent officers insist on it because of customary routine! Like the case of Michael above!

The above are examples of Professional Automatism! Means are more important than the end! The paperwork is more important than the purpose!
But most of the time even if they don’t do any work, professional automatism still gets them promoted! In fact if you question or do not get with the flow, then you are not given any promotion! Here competence is harmful!

It was shown with a great example of a temporary teacher!
Probationer-teacher C. Cleary’s first teaching assignment was to a special class of retarded children. Although he had been warned that these children would not accomplish very much, he proceeded to teach them all he could. By the end of the year, many of Cleary’s retarded children scored better on standardized achievement tests of reading and arithmetic than did children in regular classes!
When Cleary received his dismissal notice he was told that he had grossly neglected the bead stringing, sandbox and other busy-work which were the things that retarded children should do. He had failed to make adequate use of the modelling clay, pegboards and finger paints!
If the whole company is incompetent then your competency is your curse!

Which made the author comment that Super competence is more objectionable than incompetence!

Of course the whole book is just an extension of the first chapter and ironically that was the most competent chapter and the author should have stopped there! He did not do it but still the book manages to hold your attention for a while with some notes and comments which I have enumerated…

The author states that there are three classes of workers the incompetent, moderately competent and competent!

The supers in both sides are liable to be dismissed!

Finishing your project within the budget is always bad! If you have any hope of getting a raise the next time make sure that your budget is spent! This is of course a known phenomenon! Do not be too competent is the key!

Examples of different types of incompetence like physical social emotional and mental! All with examples mainly of managers where even the appointing of assistants did not solve the problems!

Over some time though the author gets into his own brain and starts teaching doctors that many problems such as anxiety acidity and depression and many many more are due to a condition invented by him! On top of that the author is frustrated that the medical community does not recognise it!

Then in one chapter the author goes into naming syndrome and phobia and Philia mode! Naming things like compulsive alternation and the teeter totter syndrome! There is a whole list of things which he goes over drive in naming and giving definitions but like I mentioned before the essence is the same! The first chapter is the peak!

Many of the things he says he gives examples of some manager who did that and got nowhere and that makes for interesting stories! Now the stories are nice but repetitive!

Also how superiors treated subordinates and colleagues by body shaming subconsciously! Like how Napoleon towards his later years gave promotion only those with long nose!

All in all a good book to leaf through and if you are interested you can read it or you can just read my summary and the first chapter and you will get more than 80 percent of the essence of the book!

Now that is competence!

“He stood on the dias beeming with pride!

It was difficult but boy! what a ride!

The greatest achievement of his life!

He the lucky groom, she his clever bride!”

As the saying goes, behind every Successful man there is a woman! Historically apparently even that phrase is not accurate! Now of course the phrase has its roots in the idea that women often provide support, encouragement, and inspiration to the men in their lives. Historically, women were often responsible for managing households and providing emotional support to their husbands, allowing them to focus on their careers or other pursuits.

The actual phrase used many years ago was that, “Behind every successful man, There is s STRONG woman!”

I guess putting the prefix Strong for woman is not needed since they are naturally strong and here the strength is emotions and mental!

Now there is an invention by man but made famous by a woman! So much so that it was featured in a famous movie on a wonder of the world! Whew!

Read on! 

During World War II, an engineer named Richard James wanted to help the troops by inventing springs that could stabilize important instruments on naval ships during times of rough seas. While working on the springs, one was knocked off a table and “walked” its way down to the floor, then re-coiled itself and stood upright!

Does that ring a bell!?

Those fairs you used to go when you were young (er!) and that spring toy made either of plastic or metal? 

Of course it would work so well in the fair but the moment you get it in your home and play with it for a couple of days, am sure it would have got entangled and gone for good!

I cannot even count the number of such toys which were Fair purchases and turned out to be silly and costly afFAIRS!

So to continue the story!

Richard went home and did not think too much about it! But he did the more intelligent thing which every husband must do! Show the device to his wife! Or at least ask for her opinion! Even the first critic or reader of my sketches and blogs is my wife! Only when she identifies the person in the sketch do I go ahead and post! The blog does not need any approval (for now!)

So he told that how a loose coil of wire that had been accidentally dropped appeared to walk! And he thought and told her that it that looks pretty fun!

The ever supporting wife, Betty also like it! Now since it was slimy and may be a little kinked! We do not know the actual reason why she named it thus and that is not important! So anyway she called it Slinky!

It was first demonstrated to customers at Gimbels Department Store in 1945, and within the first 90 minutes over 400 Slinkys had been sold!

Yes! That famous spring toy we all loved to play with albeit for some time and the one which was featured in Jim Carrey’s movie Ace Ventura as coming down the steps of the Great Wall of China!

Of course Betty later on became the president and has always kept the toy’s price low so children could buy it! It originally sold for $1. Slinky has received many toy industry awards and honors over the years. Its television jingle is the longest running jingle in advertising history! Another industrial Giant with many awards under his name is birthday celebrity Anand Gopal Mahindra! 

Now control your urge to play with Slinky and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“She reached for her ears it was loud
The aching of her skull gave her no choice!
He stood there shocked beyond words!
Like the adage, music for some, for others; Noise!…”

Do you know what is NOISE? Well, of course the phonetic version you would know! And of course Music for one may be noise for another and vice versa! There is also a noise which is a frequent terminology used in the Photography world especially the Digital Photography world where you have lots of “Noise” which in that context means that the resolution of the Photo is not good! Now finally there is a Noise which cannot be heard or seen!
But it is very much present in our daily interaction and causes tons of problems just like the actual Noise! In fact there is an entire book written on this phenomenon co written by the man who bought you Thinking; Fast and slow! Daniel Kanheman! Lets make some Noise!

So the story goes how a longtime customer accidentally submitted the same application file to two offices. Though the employees who reviewed the file were supposed to follow the same guidelines—and thus arrive at similar outcomes—the separate offices returned very different quotes!

Professionals in many organizations are assigned arbitrarily to cases: appraisers in credit-rating agencies, physicians in emergency rooms, underwriters of loans and insurance, and others.
Organizations expect consistency from these professionals: Identical cases should be treated similarly, if not identically.
The problem is that humans are unreliable decision makers; their judgments are strongly influenced by irrelevant factors, such as their current mood, the time since their last meal, and the weather.
Even otherwise with the prevalence of Reels and WhatsApp videos and information, misinformation and trends decide many decision making! Sometimes your thoughts and belief system compels you to alter or change your behaviour!

This chance variability of judgments is called noise. It is an invisible but relevant burden on the bottom line of many companies.

Luckily some jobs which are really important for the smooth functioning of a company or even a country are are noise-free!

Clerks at a bank or a post office or at Passport control office perform complex tasks, but they must follow strict rules that limit subjective judgment and guarantee, by design, that identical cases will be treated identically! In fact here the issue happens when there is deviation from normal which is another Noise! But most of the time the collection of documents and scrutiny is normally within a well defined system of rule or regulation which ensures that there is either no or Little Noise!

In contrast, medical professionals, loan officers, project managers, judges, and executives all make judgment calls, which are guided by informal experience and general principles rather than by rigid rules.
Even you would have experienced how no two doctors or two mechanics would ever word by word to each other’s diagnosis and/ or treatment! Of course this does not mean that they do not respect each other, but some decisions are not bound by strict rules! Only by Guidelines which can be treated differently by each professional which gives rise to Noise!

And if they don’t reach precisely the same answer that every other person in their role would, that’s acceptable; this is what we mean when we say that a decision is “a matter of judgment.”
This is an acceptable situation and is the reason why people take second opinion or another “look”.

Academic researchers have repeatedly confirmed that professionals often contradict their own prior judgments when given the same data on different occasions.
For instance, when software developers were asked on two separate days to estimate the completion time for a given task, the hours they projected differed by 71%, on average.
When pathologists made two assessments of the severity of biopsy results, the correlation between their ratings was only .61 (out of a perfect 1.0), indicating that they made inconsistent diagnoses quite frequently. Judgments made by different people are even more likely to diverge!

Research has confirmed that in many tasks, experts’ decisions are highly variable: valuing stocks, appraising real estate, sentencing criminals, evaluating job performance, auditing financial statements, and more. The unavoidable conclusion is that professionals often make decisions that deviate significantly from those of their peers, from their own prior decisions, and from rules that they themselves claim to follow.
This is the very reason why you have the series of courts! How one court gives a judgement which with the same evidence and proofs is either corrected or changed by a higher court!

It is less well known that the key advantage of algorithms is that they are noise-free: Unlike humans, a formula will always return the same output for any given input. Superior consistency allows even simple and imperfect algorithms to achieve greater accuracy than human professionals.
Like how it has been suggested that you give the same set of parameters to a machine the second time and expect a different result is actually an example of Insanity!

In a now popular study done in 1981, 208 federal judges were asked to determine the appropriate sentences for the same 16 cases. The cases were described by the characteristics of the offense (robbery or fraud, violent or not) and of the defendant (young or old, repeat, or first-time offender, accomplice, or principal). Of course you may think that judges would agree closely with each other since there were no distracting details and probe contained only relevant information!

But it was NOISY! The judges did not agree. The average difference between the sentences that two randomly chosen judges gave for the same crime was more than 3.5 years. Considering that the mean sentence was seven years, that was a disconcerting amount of noise!

Aggregated over the assessments made every year, the cost of noise has been measured in billions and the value of reducing noise even by a few percentage points would be in the tens of millions! And you thought the future is Noise cancellation headphones! The future is Noise cancellation! But of a different kind!

So how do we take care of this noise?
Well, one of the most radical solution to the noise problem is to replace human judgment with formal rules known as algorithms that use the data about a case to produce a prediction or a decision!

Practically put, no emotions! No NOISE! Of course when this cannot be done then you must bringing Discipline to Judgment and it has been suggested that professionals should be offered user-friendly tools, such as checklists and carefully formulated questions, to guide them as they collect information about a case, make intermediate judgments, and formulate a final decision!
Now Judgement and Noise reminds me of birthday celebrity Rajat Sharma!

Now turn off the Noisy (listening kind!) Television and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!

“The little child looked at him eagerly!

He wanted to know when will it snow!

He was not taught before and by anyone!

That stare you can but unless you ask, how will you know!”

The other day in a group it was argued that a good Guru or teacher is someone who does not prevent you from asking questions! If you do not ask then you will never know! 

As the song from Journey goes, “So many messages lost in silence!”

Of course when we were young (er!) asking questions was frowned upon and this was the norm! You simply had to do what you are told! It was army in all the forms of life whether at home or at school! Which is why many times most of us have been trained to just follow and not question! Maybe the reason why innovation takes time to come!

The go to people those days to ask questions were our immediate seniors and siblings or cousins! 

In medical college it was the seniors and peers! 

Now of course you have Dr Google who has the answer to everything except your future!

One of the popular sites for question and answers was actually started by couple of Facebook folks who started asking questions!

So a Question-and-Answer site lets people ask questions and receive answers from anyone who is willing and hopefully knowledgeable enough to reply. 

Question-and-Answer sites  have been around since the creation of the Internet!

Sites like, Ask Jeeves and Answers.com, were the the trailblazers to the new trend. Ask Jeeves, launched in 1997 and became an overnight hit with millions of users visiting the site looking to have their burning questions answered. Jeeves of course was the Intelligent Butler starring in P G Wodehouse books! In fact his quotes are still golden! So just like in the novel ask Jeeves site knew the answer to all of your questions which could be posted in conversational language or by keyword searches! 

Then came another revolution in form of Yahoo! Answers! So while Yahoo! was officially incorporated on March 2, 1995, and was created by Jerry Yang and David Filo, the website began as a search directory for various websites, and soon grew into an established Internet resource that featured the “Yahoo! Answers” platform! Officially Yahoo! Answers was launched in mid-2005 and Answers was finally made available for general availability on May 15, 2006. Yahoo! Answers was created to replace Ask Yahoo!, Yahoo!’s former Q&A platform which was discontinued in March 2006. 

Finally the website which can lay the Numero Uno claim to the number one site for Q and A is; Yes! Quora! At least that is the situation whenever you place any question in Google and you are sure to get an answer!

Now when you have several answers to one questions then the issue is which answer is correct!? 

Like even the question about the origin of name has several answers in Quora! Like one says the full form definition(s) of the acronym or abbreviation “QUORA” is: “Questions or Answers (Internet » Websites ).” “QUORA” means a question-and-answer website created, edited and organized by its community of users! While another answers says that the name comes from the root word quorum, which represents many people coming together to accomplish a common goal! Another answer says Quora is believed to be a combination of the words “query” and “ora”, which means “voice” in Latin!

So Quora was co-founded by former Facebook employees Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever in June 2009. After consulting with friends and eliminating ones they didn’t love, they narrowed it down to 5 or 6 finalists, and eventually settled on Quora. The closest competition that Quora had was Quiver! 

The world and Quora now has lots of answers to your questions but which is the best one for you is the million rupees question now! Of course the answer to the question of who is one of the first Indian artists to use oil paints and to master the art of lithographic reproduction of his work? The answer is obviously the birthday celebrity Raja Ravi Varma! Now for many Indian artist he is the answer to all questions but since I dabble only in black and white sketches, the dedication reflects my answer! 

Now log out of Quora and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

“He was hanging in mid air nay a care 

Just a thin rope holding him high!

He was a trapeze artist of great repute!

With every jump he tries to reach the sky!”

How do you feel when someone calls you a retard? Well, of course angry but still it is really great that you understand the meaning of retard so that actually makes you not one! Now that is not a justification of calling or getting called a retard! 

Now, do you know a similar sounding word called Leotard?

Read on! 

Well, it has nothing to do with retard and was in fact quite an intelligent work and is in fact named after its inventor who not only was intelligent but also has a song inspired by him!

So the story goes that Jules was born in France and was a good student! But he wanted to fly! That is good you may ponder but in his case, he literally wanted to fly!

So while he was on track to become a Liar…I mean, Lawyer; he began to experiment with trapeze bars, ropes and rings!

Of course the apple didn’t fall far from the tree since he was actually trained by his father who taught gymnastics and managed a swimming pool!

Remember those famous acts of Trapeze artists where they balance on top of a rope! Well, Jules would practice his trapeze stunts suspended over the pool!

Falling would make him only wet and a little upset! 

The one thing Jules was annoyed with was the fact that there were no tight dresses which could fit him in one piece without any flying over or over hang!

In the movie incredibles, the official superhero cloth designer always used to say that a super hero must not have a cape! Simply because it will get stuck somewhere and that does happen to the supervillain so that is that! 

So the mother which was necessity in this case and not his own mother (though she might have done the stitching for all we know!); made him design a skin-tight, knitted one-piece he invented to allow him total freedom and aerodynamics! 

Because it was so form fitting, there was no danger of any fabric catching or flapping as he performed!

Also you must understand that unlike the puny skinny kids like me at that age, Jules was a well built man so he had no qualm of showing of his tight corners or masculinity on full display much to the apparent delight (I am assuming!) of ladies and gents alike! 

With his slim fitting Superhero single fit outfit Jules was unstoppable! 

In 1859, Jules invented the flying trapeze act!

He became the first person to complete a somersault in mid-air and the first to jump from one trapeze to the next! 

Now you will scream (like a retard!) that you have seen this often so what is so great about it?!

Well, Jules was the first one to do these stunts high up in the sky for the FIRST time WITHOUT any safety net! 

As far as the song is concerned, the song: “The Man on the Flying Trapeze” by George Leybourne was inspired by him! And no! I am yet to listen to the song but I am sure it will be a high flying one!

Anyway, Jules sported his skin-tight uniform for the rest of his career. And sixteen years after his death, the name “leotard” caught on! (Maybe that is why it is called Sweet sixteen!; Now that is definitely a retarded joke!). 

Paris ballet schools were the first non-circus performers to adopt the leotard. And over a century later, leotards are still sold and used at dance and gymnastics schools to this day or night for that matter! 

All because a masculine man who wanted to be a Lawyer decided to wear a tight dress and fly! Masculine roles with a sensitive touch reminds me of birthday celebrity P. Samuthirakani!

Now wear your two piece night dress and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

“It was made in an instant
Without a chance to think
Jump into the water first
Then think about float or sink…”

In the amazing book by Daniel Kahneman called’ Thinking, Fast and Slow you have a section on something called Heuristic and Bias.

The whole concept has now taken a management level and Heuristics is an important phenomenon!
Remember that famous joke on how in an interview one person was asked, “What is your greatest positive quality?”
The person answered I make quick and prompt decisions!

So he was later asked some complicated mathematical problem like what is the square root of say ten thousand and he answered instantly “ten!” (or something; the answer is not important here so do not get into the accuracy!)

The interviewer shouted, “But that is completely wrong!”

To which the person replied, “I said I make prompt or quick decisions! I did not tell that I make the right decisions!”

That is closer to Heuristic!

Though it sounds like Heretic, which means someone whose beliefs or actions are considered wrong by most people, because they disagree with beliefs that are generally accepted; Heuristic is close but means something else!

The root meaning is from Ancient Greek which literally translates to “I find, discover”! And is thus the process by which humans use mental shortcuts to arrive at decisions.

Practically, heuristics are simple strategies that humans, animals, organizations, and even machines use to quickly form judgments, make decisions, and find solutions to complex problem!

Some common examples in day to day life are like how a person is stuck in traffic and makes an impulsive decision to take the other route even though he or she does not know the way. Someone is offered a job and accepts it without further details and so on!

When you apply affect heuristic, you view a situation quickly and decide without further research whether a thing is good or bad

This is an important tool in marketing and sales because Impulse buying is a great way to make sales!

There are some variations to this and modifications like a term called the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. Here you use a starting point to anchor your point or judgment, but then you adjust your information based on new evidence. Like how a A salesman initially offering a high price and eventually arriving at a fair value with the customer!

In another terminology called the availability heuristic, you use the information available to you to make the best guess or decision possible like trying to guess the population of the city you live in even though you have never looked up the exact number of people and like closer to the election your assuming that most people in your city will vote a certain way because you and your immediate community are voting that way!

There is another terminology called the Common Sense Heuristic which is defined as a practical and prudent approach that is applied to a decision where the right and wrong answers seem relatively clear cut. The commonest example for this is like how if it is raining outside, you should bring an umbrella. Other cited ones are how you (not me since I cannot stress enough that I am a Teetotaler and proud of it!) choose not to drive after having one too many drinks or how you (this is definitely me! since I am very choosy of the food I eat!) decide not to eat food if you don’t know what it is!

You also have the Familiarity Heuristic which is how something, someone or somewhere familiar is favored over the unknown. Like a group is deciding between a new restaurant and a restaurant they have been to many times and ultimately goes to the restaurant they usually go to or How a driver takes the familiar route to work every day even though there is another, faster way and finally consumers buy the same brands over and over regardless of the quality of the products!

Finally (at least in my blog! Since Heuristics is a behemoth in sales techniques!) you have the Representativeness Heuristic! This was one of the first ones to be described by Daniel and was a part of an experiment done!
In the original experiment on representativeness heuristic during the 1970s, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman gave participants descriptions of a man named Tom.
They characterized him as organized, detail-oriented, competent, and having a strong moral compass. Based on these details, participants were asked to guess Tom’s college major.
Using representativeness, the participants assumed that Tom was an engineering student even though there were relatively few engineering students at the university where the study was conducted! It was a fallacy because here there are lots of assumption made which may not be true!

Some very common examples are assuming someone is arrogant and self-absorbed because they are reserved, quiet and rarely interact with people! or
how we judge someone’s nationality using only preconceived notions based on the way they look and talk even though you have not spoken to them or learned anything about them.


In medical parlour, if you see a doctor with clean white coat we assume he or she is a dermatologist! While one with white stains on the pants is an Ortho GUY! Or one with a complicated steth is a cardiologist! Or one with the Knee Hammer is a General Physician! Or a LADY doc with a green Ot dress draped half heartedly may be the Obstetrician!
These are all examples of the Representativeness Heuristic! And finally a well adjusted smartly groomed person with a clean coat and calm demeanour maybe the ENT! Now this final statement is suspect since I am ENT so this is not only an example of Representative Heuristic but also Bias! Another example of Bias is like how I like the tamil Version Gajini directed by celebrity Murugadas Arunachalam more than the hindi version since I am a South Indian! Though both are really good!

Now make a Non Heuristic decision to sleep!
Shubh ratri!

“The white barrel had hot steam coming out all around!
With delicate precision, coconut flakes over it was found!
The brown hot river had stones of pulse!
Eating that hot Puttu was his first impulse!”

After a long time, I had Puttu today and it was really bad! Hard and thick and hardly any coconut in between and to top it off, the Kadala Curry was thick and had no flavor and the banana was raw and sour! Of course I had no mood to eat but then that is an independent matter altogether!

Practically though Puttu has no actual taste of its own! I can literally see my Keralite friends folding their Mundu getting ready to kick me!
Now since anyway the Mundu is folded, I can tell you that the favorite breakfast of my dear Mallu friends is not from Kerala!
Keep your Mundu on and read on!

Now I have never been a fan of the Puttu and if given a choice between two tasteless breakfast main that is Puttu or Idli; I would unhesitatingly select Idli! You can simply eat the Idli with the Chutney powder or if it too hard or cold you can always make a good Idli Uppuma which actually tastes really good!

Now by their own both Puttu and Idli do not have much taste unless the Idli is made by my mother and her trick was that she always used the cloth to place the MAVU or flour! Those Idlis used to be so soft and hot that you can hold one end and the other end would break! My dad used to say how they must be like Malli poo or Jasmine flowers! So soft and delicate! Though the real taste of Idli is the samabar or the chutney! or even the spicy chutney powder with Ghee or Til oil! Like me, my mother did not have much inclination to make or eat Puttu! It could also be the fact that for five odd years in Calicut Medical college, the only respite for a vegetarian for breakfast was the Humble Puttu! Since the Idli could literally break my jaw!

Similarly like the Idli, the side dishes like the Hot Kadala Curry or the cheruvar payar curry or the roast bananas are the ones which give taste to the Puttu!
Again exception is the Puttu made by my brother Rakesh who used to make his famous brown and white puttu as part of the Puttu festival whenever he used to come home! In fact whenever I get or rarely make Puttu, my kids exclaim, “Oh! The doddu (a short form of dodappa or periappa which means the elder brother of the father or Tauji!) breakfast! During those times of course the special side dishes are again important but still my brother’s Puttu were so tempting and hot that you can eat at least some early bites without anything! Till your whole throat becomes dry and craving for some fluid!

The Special twist which I used to do in the Kadala curry is to roast some shallots and grind and put them in the gravy with some coconut milk! Also like my mother I used to make the Banana as morabba in Jaggery! We get this special Nendra banana which I used to cut in small pieces along with the skin and heat them along with jaggery and a little cardaomom! It is better since it’s more fluid than the dry Puttu! Also my brother puts a little sugar and salt in the dough along with a liberal dose of coconut gratings! The way he comes loaded with his multple Puttu instruments would put a Thatta kada (cart shop in Kerala) owner to shame! Then it could also be the fact that he serves it piping hot and we all would be eagerly waiting for him to push the Puttu on our plates! Since the day he makes Puttu which is usually for dinner, we would not make anything else! So all the hungry and eager faces would stare at him for his precious hot delight! The bloating sensation and the fullness the next day and the deep sleep may not be a coincidence!

So finally coming to the origin of Puttu since the Mallu friend with the folded Mundu is feeling cold! It has been said that the puttu was first made in Tamil Nadu. Today, puttu is also made apart from Kerala in Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Sri Lanka! Even as far as the Assam there is a similar dish called Sungapitha!

The origin of the story is that puttu was mentioned in the 15th-century Tamil poet Arunagirinathar’s book ‘Thirupugazh’! But during the time there was no mention of Puttu in any Malayalam book!

There is an interesting snippet about puttu in Thiruvilayadal Puranam written by Param lyotthi Munivaran in the 16th century. The Thiruvilayadal Puranam narrates the story of Sivaperumal of the famous temple in Madurai. Once, Lord Ganesha, in disguise, approached an old lady who was selling puttu on the way side and offered to help her. However, the old lady replied that she didn’t have money to pay him any remuneration. Lord Ganesh then told the lady that he would accept the crumbled bits of puttu as his remuneration. The legend says that the entire puttu made by the old lady, that day, was crumbled. Even today, crumbled puttu is presented as and offering for the idol of Lord Ganesha in Madurai!

Now my dear Mallu friends, do not fret! Puttu record is by Kerala only! So a world record has been created for the longest puttu ever made!
Twelve final year students of Oriental School of Hotel Management, set the World Record by making the World’s Longest Puttu which was around 18 feet! Now that is a great reason for the mallu dance! And thinking how the recent malayalam movie has stirred up a craze for an old Tamil song sung by Birthday Celebrity S Janaki; It means that if it is good then Mallus or Keralites will take it!

Now if you are planning for the Puttu tomorrow then do not forget to soak some chickpeas overnight!
Shubh Ratri!

“The little bird entered its large mouth which was a big shock!

’cause the mouth was of the scary Nile croc’

It simply pecked the food between the wide tooth span! 

A quick bite for the bird and for the croc, a free dental plan!”

This fish called the pilot fish was seen following a trawler or a ship which had recently caught a shark! In fact the fishermen had seen the school of this fishes swimming along with the shark! It was as if they had lost a friend! 

That was in fact the case! How it is said that if you go to jail then befriend the biggest and the meanest guy in the jail and you will be assured protection till he or she is there! Of course the better thing would be to avoid going to the jail in the first place! Then of course you have my favourite movie called the Shawshank Redemption where you have another great partnership between Andy and the jailer! Even though these two relationship seem similar, they are in fact not the same or are they?! Read on! 

In the book called 30 days to a more powerful vocabulary by Dan Strutzel; he talks about Synergy and Symbiosis!

So Synergy refers to the interaction between two or more elements that results in a combined effect greater than the sum of their individual effects! This term is commonly used in business to describe the benefits of teamwork and collaboration. 

Synergy is often the primary motivation behind pursuing a merger! Combining the best of both worlds! It is like having your cake and eating it with cream! Shareholders can benefit from synergy, as a post-merger share price often increases because of the effect synergy has on the deal. 

We can also achieve synergy through factors like combined talent, combined technology, streamlined processes that allow for cost reduction and increased revenue. Here it has been seen that even Negative synergies can also exist! Here people or organizations can accomplish more if they work independently than when they work together. It is like division of labour and part of work to get the complete work done as a whole! 

Now coming to Symbiosis; this is a biological term that describes the close and often long-term interaction between two or more different biological species. It is a mutually beneficial relationship where both organisms benefit from the interaction. Symbiosis can take many different forms, including mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. In mutualistic symbiosis, both organisms benefit from the relationship, while in commensalism, one organism benefits while the other is neither helped nor harmed. In parasitism, one organism benefits at the expense of the other! 

The initial example of Pilot fish was an example of symbiosis and it has been seen that many species of shark have established an unlikely alliance with these pilot fish. So while the pilot fish helps to rid the shark of parasites and clean away fragments of food caught between their teeth, it benefits from protection against other predators. The companionship between these two species is said to be so strong which is probably the reason of following the ship which had caught its “Bodyguard!”.

It has been seen that synergism is among organisms allows for the creation of an effect that neither could create on its own. The relationship is not obligatory, and both organisms can survive independently! 

In fact in some context synergism is a part of symbiosis which makes it interesting! The final five types of five types of symbiosis will now be mutualism, synergism, commensalism, parasitism, and antagonism. Of course I do not need to evaluate antagonism since that is the relationship every human knows since his or her being aware of the world! Of course if you do not have antagonism with your enemies then you are just dull! Though of course if you have an arch enemy or nemesis then you may have either overdone it or maybe you are a marvellous super hero (or Heroine for that matter!) and you just do not know it yet! Thinking of Superheroes and Arch nemesis and even Marvel reminds me of the quirky Stan Lee who was an actual superhero in a symbiotic and synergistic relation with everyone!

Now form a symbiotic relationship with your bed and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!

“The poem was so good, the words were so profound!

The way he uttered them was so sound!

The judge was shocked though he did fake a grin!

The poem was in fact written by him!”

In so many blogs I have discussed how the wrong inventor has been given credit and the rightful person is either neglected or forgotten! I have a special passion for this since once when I was young (er!); I had entered an essay competition and I had read several books and met my English teacher to get good points for the same! Those lines are still fresh in my memory like, Sitting in this Dingy (the first time I heard that word actually!) was one! A guy was sitting just behind me who unknown to me copied those points verbatim! I was told later that a big discussion went in the staff room on whose paper was the original! Even now I vehemently thank my English teacher who supported me in spite of the fact that the other guy was the biology Teacher’s kid! And that is why when I do something I make sure I get the credit for it! But to take credit for someone else’s work is the greatest crime according to me!

So this guy was denied of the credit of not one but two big inventions! No, it is not Tesla who I am sure would have the actual claim to many inventions denied to him but this is an ancient dude!

One of the coolest weapons in the Doom Series is the flamethrower! This amazing weapon’s creation is is generally credited to Richard Fiedler, who submitted designs for two variants of the weapon to the German military during the early 1900s!

The uncredited inventor was actually the Kallinikos of Heliopolis. 

The concept of the flamethrower goes all the way back to ancient Greece. Early flamethrowers were described by Apollodorus of Damascus as coal-powered and were used in combination with acid to crack stone walls. However, Kallinikos of Heliopolis developed the first truly effective flamethrower dubbed “Greek fire,” the weapon was used by the ancient Byzantine Empire to cripple opposing ships. A tube-like device delivered both the fuel and the flame that would ignite it, creating the flamethrower effect that would later become so famous! So Apollodorus may have been the first but maybe he did not complete the design which can explain the injustice! 

But the injustice does not stop here! 

How everyone’s favourite past time is to simply go to a mall! Well the first shopping mall is generally credited to Victor Gruen, who was instrumental in designing and building the first mall in 1954! 

In addition to his work with flamethrowers, Apollodorus of Damascus is also believed to have developed a concept very similar while working as the architect of Rome’s famed Trajan’s Market!  The building encompassed a range of market stalls and covered shops in addition to apartment buildings, making it the first true urban hub. The ruins of the market and the Trajan Forum can still be seen to this day!

So the ruins of the first mall stand tall but the credit to Apollodorus has suffered a fall! Then again some legends do not need any introduction like the legend and pride of Karnataka Singanalluru Puttaswamaiah Muthuraj aka Dr Rajkumar! A quick pen sketch on the go! 

Now credit some sleep to your body!

Shubh ratri!

“T’was hiding behind those words!

A little pain and pricking like swords!

A complex sign here with a simple halitosis!

Ah! the effort it takes to reach a diagnosis!”

The other day a Patient came to see me after some years and I recognized him as an ex constable and that his son was studying in the engineering college! He was so happy! The reason why I actually remember him was because he had a severe on table bleed for a neck surgery and we had a tough time controlling the same! In all probability it was because of his anti platelet medication which he did not stop as instructed. 

Of course it was controlled and then it caused some additional days of stay in the hospital and then his son had rushed from his college to meet him out in the Operation theatre waiting room! 

Do you like it when your doctor recognizes you? It may not be a good thing though! Read on!…

So when a Doctor, especially surgeon recognizes you, more often than not it may be a special case or a complication! Of course there are exceptions but there is no way you would ever forget the cases which failed or did not meet your or the Patient’s expectations! 

One of my Professor in medical college was so well known for his people skills and everyone used to marvel at his memory recall of patients! That too it was the medical department and a busy one! He used to mention how in the corner of the Op sheet he would draw a small plane which indicated that someone from the Patient’s family used to live abroad! Then we realised he used to use these small tricks to find familiarity with the patients!

Most of the times when a doctor recognises an old patient, half of the work is done! When we ask stuff like how is the work in your bank or how’s the teaching job; it gives them confidence and ease! And a comfortable and happy patient will most of the time get better IN SPITE of your treatment! 

Of course now there are some doctors who either by memory or by observation can tell so many things about the patient that it feels magical!

In fact if you see the inspiration of Sherlock Holmes, probably the most famous detective in the fiction world; You would realise that the author Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a doctor himself! He had repeatedly though mentioned that he was inspired by another doctor who used to enthrall everyone by his powers of observations to tell stuff about patient’s even without asking them a single question! 

The name of the doctor will ring a Bell since his name was Dr Joseph Bell!

In his instruction, Joseph Bell emphasized the importance of close observation in making a diagnosis. To illustrate this, he would often pick a stranger, and by observing him, deduce his occupation and recent activities. These skills caused him to be considered a pioneer in forensic science, at a time when science was not yet widely used in criminal investigation. 

He served as personal surgeon to Queen Victoria whenever she visited Scotland. He also published several medical textbooks. Bell wrote the book Manual of the Operations of Surgery! 

According to Irving Wallace (in an essay originally in his book The Fabulous Originals but later republished and updated in his collection The Sunday Gentleman), Bell was involved in several police investigations, mostly in Scotland, such as the Ardlamont mystery of 1893, usually with forensic expert Professor Henry Littlejohn. Bell also gave his analysis of the Ripper murders to Scotland Yard! 

Even otherwise, if you think about it; Doctors are like detectives or sleuths who have to use their skills and power to detect what’s wrong give the proper treatment! The moment they listen to the history, a string of diagnosis would run through their minds which would be narrowed down with the examinations and tests in that order! Ideally a good doctor must be able to diagnose and treat with the most minimum of tests and the least number of medication!

No wonder some of the most famous authors who have written thrillers and stuff about complex emotions and technology are doctors! The list apart from Conan Doyle is rather long and includes Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, A J Cronin and even Khaled Hosseini! Now that is an amazing combination of brain and wit! A combination of wit and brawn though is Birthday Celebrity John Cena! 

Now pray that your doctor does not recognize you and sleep!

Shubh Ratri!