The Hindu Business Line : Boundary keeping

AS all managers ought to know, border control is the first job of a good manager; he has to establish boundaries, keep himself well within them, and all problems firmly on the other side. And as all the managers I have worked with know, I'm not particularly good at it.

Take for instance, the house I purchased recently. It was simply too beautiful to resist; or to notice that it faced north, and was on the top floor. Summer, therefore, I lost control over from day one, though I didn't notice it till a few months later. Being a good if somewhat erratic learner, I installed an air-conditioner the first time summer came along; and spent thousands keeping the roof warm.

There was a further problem. Sausage (a Dachshund) already resents being left alone in the house all day; and now, since I simply cannot stand cold, I had to stay away at nights as well.

She slept in one room, I in the other. She's 12 now; old enough to be my mother; but when she first came into my life she was only a month old; young enough to be my granddaughter. That, too, doesn't help.

The second and third problems I haven't yet found a way out of. But I decided that I could at least tackle the first by insulating the roof. It worked like a charm, and my bank balance went up by leaps and bounds; till, as a result, the TNEB was forced to revise tariffs dramatically upwards.

And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, winter came along, and the sun wended its way well to the south; and lost a great deal of the uprightness which, for some odd reason, the Rig Veda is so consistent in its praise of.

The contractor having done his job well, the roof stayed cool. So lower electricity bills, much lower I might add, or subtract, as the case might be, because of the tariff hike, now became the only discernible difference between summer and winter; and the fact that Sausage and I could be together at nights — and the fact that I was forced to atone for my sins of omission and commission by sharing her 'blanket,' my feet sticking out at one end, and my head at the other.

Which reminds me of one other thing I never learnt at the management school I never attended: Never, never, back your way into, or `out of,' problems.