Simply complex

At a business meeting, I struggle to find out what problem is being discussed. It is clouded by so much conflicting data that even the speaker ends up getting confused. On one occasion, a visiting director of a multinational company finally said, 8220;If you cannot tell me in one sentence what the problem is, then you do not really have a problem!8221;

Once, in New York I walked into a Subway restaurant for a quick sandwich and a coke. I was asked a sequence of incredible questions. The man at the counter rattled off names of different kinds of bread, cheese, sauce and vegetables. He then demanded to know what my choice was going to be. I beat a hasty retreat and bought myself a simple sandwich from a street vendor.

I have now given up on-line transactions. After you have barely managed to respond to the first question, you are hounded by several others. In the end you are notified that since the answers were not completed, the transaction remains incomplete.

Only once in my life did I need to consult a lawyer. It was on a trivial matter but that single experience has made me an ardent follower of all the laws of the land. Sometimes one needs to consult a medical practitioner. You are invariably sent off on an expedition of tests. The doctor is unwilling to pronounce any verdict until he sees all the reports although you get a vague feeling that he knew what the problem was all along.

But for the mother of all complexities you need just look at the forms created by the government. From ration card to passport, from telephone to gas cylinder, they are not exactly applicant-friendly. In search of simplicity, the new income tax forms are likely to become an investigation into human behaviour.

As Confucius said, life is simple but we insist on making it complicated.

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