A Roast to my Mentor

Try telling my Yoda the rhetorical, “I had a bad day today!,” and pat comes his reply, “Oh it’s all about mind control. What “I” do is insulate myself from the world around me by building a wall. By doing so, I am in absolute control. If you do it like me, then nothing can make your day bad. Not a mosquito. Not even your hubby. Steven Covey says: “Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior.” “I” have found this helpful throughout my life.

What he means is, If you have had a bad day, it just goes to show how much more you have to learn, how much more you need to mature and grow. You can do it, Preethi. You and only you can do it for yourself. Err…knock knock, Who is it? Oh Condescension, whose name starts with a Huge A.

I, I, I and I, the towering I that cannot say a simple Oh Is it. Or may be nod understandingly, say a hmmm, aahhhh or an ok, or I know, some days are like that.

All I see is a big head full of statistics and data filled learnings and heavy duty wisdom that is waiting to spill forth in all their grandeur at the smallest opportunity. Because you know every single opportunity is to be grabbed to present how sorted out he is. Like his socks and shirts too that go into the cupboards in a neat stack.

The all-knowing Yoda has shaved his head almost bald, like he is hoping to remove any obstruction whatsoever to the halo that’s beginning to appear brighter and brighter around his head.

I can go on and on about his typical encyclopaediac-long pontification he delivers better than the pope. With an attitude that means, I pity you, I have decoded everything that can be decoded ever, while you go whining or pining for things. I have attained nirvana of the highest heights and I can see everything crystal clear from atop my huge ever growing pedestal covered with the brightest spotlight.

It amazes me how he pours out lessons he thinks you never knew on everything from managing a boss and a spouse to the scratch on your car or a blotch on your career (I tell him: pssst! I have seen school, college, corporate world, friends, the world around me too and BTW I know google, Youtube and the likes exist!)

He does all this with a bland poker face and a monotone that will want robots to go thronging to him for training. In contrast, today’s Alexas might actually use him as an example to be avoided. But I have to give it to him, there’s definitely some modulation in his voice when he utters the oh so important I, that sounds like its accompanied by a grand orchestra or better still his favourite rock band.

So here is the thing: most of the time he is preaching and teaching, he thinks I am processing all of those gyan deep within but you know what I am doing: Wondering if he even knows how to scream or wince or raise his eyebrows or laugh aloud or put his tongue out in jest. I wonder if he knows that face muscles and even the larynx are actually flexible.

Wondering what if i gouge open his mouth, will it ever elicit a loud groan? Or will well-mannered Covey quotes march out in a neat queue, teaching me about being in control?