Elementary, my dear Watson!

I felt compelled to write this post sometime around 4.30 in the morning y'day, fearing reprimand(I had arrived home shortly after midnight) i decided to hold back till next morning. So here goes...

It started with the security check at the swank, upmarket new airport at Shamshabad, I was shocked that i was allowed to carry 2 cigarette lighters, around 4 razors, 6 packs of shaving blades (3 single blade and 3 triple) and god knows what else my old bag had, but was asked to remove a pack of ghee or give the bag in cargo/luggage. Miffed, i allowed the ghee to be cast into the garbage bin and trudged along to the smoking bay in the airport. After all they let the lighters be!

I couldnt get it, why on earth was the ghee asked to be removed? The police woman at security just repeated its not allowed when i asked WHY? the nth time. Mom liked the ghee when she was here she had casually mentioned if i could get some on my way home. I had gladly obliged, only to be done in at the security. As i started reading to kill time, i boarded the flight and kept reading, though my irritation with the ghee episode hadn't quite subsided.

I was reading a fairly interesting book, if nothing for its huge repository of anecdotes. Since I liked trivia i kept at it, despite its attempts to teach more serious stuff as books like these do.

By the time we landed at IGI airport Delhi, i was done with the book. As i shut the book and looked down at the Delhi lights glittering the landscape, i was surprised to acknowledge that apart from two bits of trivia: 1. Holmes was misquoted... Doyle had never had his protagonist utter "Elementary, my dear Watson" in the 4 novels and 56 short stories he featured in and 2. The story of 425 pound Jared who welcomed us to all Subway stores; all other anecdotes were either new to me or i had forgotten them!

Anyways, landing done i walked out of the airport to be greeted by my elder brother waiting at a 12 degree celsius night in Delhi. I was still muttering about the security missing the point in fine print (moping abt the ghee ie), when he casually mentioned something abt ghee being inflammable.

And there it was! Elementary, my dear Watson! It had nothing to do with dairy products or spillage as i had thought, it was simple ghee was inflammable and a half kilo packet incredibly so!

Feeling rather sheepish and daft about my deduction skills, i quietly allowed myself to be chaperoned to the waiting car.

And then it brought me back to Make it Stick... It was the story and the revelation that made me feel stupid. Maybe these pop-psychology books could have a deeper impact than i had thought. But then again, maybe not!