Torn Fences & Broken Walls - 1

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Good fences make good neighbors...

But...

Something there is that doesn't love a wall

Those lines are indeed Frosty.

1949: Legend and Gul has it that Nehru, being the hopeless Dreamer he ever was, wanted a clone of MIT in India. Reading his mind, several cities bid for it. Hyderabad was almost getting it. Nehru suddenly fell ill and his Personal Physician Dr B C Roy was attending on him.

Personal Physicians and Physios have a secret trapdoor to their patients' hearts. I read somewhere that Stalin, the feared one, was prone to severe stomach pangs. No drug worked. He found a Physio who could relieve his pains by working on his stomach with his 'magic' fingers. Stalin was putty in his hands during his 'masseur' sessions and Stalin gave him whatever he asked.

Nehru told BCR that Hyderabad was getting India's one and only IIT. BCR asked how many acres they were giving. Nehru quoted some number. BCR offered ten times that acreage in the British Detention Camp at Hijli. That was, as Jeeves would say, 'Psychology of the Individual'. Having been in and out of British Prisons throughout his life, Nehru liked the poetic justice.

That's it. IIT KGP was born in Bengal (Oh, well, Hyderabad had to wait 60 years to get the 10th or 11th IIT...a watered down version of the heady vintage wine that is IIT KGP).

Nehru's Survey Team visited Hijli. BCR said: "Take your push-bikes and travel from Sunrise to Sunset in a vast circle. I give you all the land you enclose".

[Joke: Texan Boy visits the 'Big Ranch' of his family friend. Friend boasts: "Take my car and drive all day; and still you will be within my Ranch" "Yea, I can see that; my grandpa had a car like that"]

The First Visionary Director JG must have had a problem how to fill that forest and ensure that his land is not grabbed by squatters. He hit upon a plan. All Staff Quarters would be British-type sprawling Bungalows with a Garden area that would make Lutyens Dilli-ka-Babus green with envy.

And JG knew that his IIT would be an All-India affair with its populace spanning its length and breadth. To promote harmony, safety, and cosmopolitanism (yes, my 'Blogger' takes only that ugly word and rejects Webster's 'cosmopolitism' with a red underline); JG insisted that every Qrs comes with its Siamese Twin attached to it: 'kitchen-to-kitchen mirror images'. And there will only be one Front Gate bifurcating after it is opened. And there will only be one fence surrounding the two. And there will be no fence dividing the twins. And kids and ladies of the twin Qrs would freely access each others' bungalows day in and day out. And play, gossip and 'LOVE THEIR NEIGHBORS'.

Well, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride; if dreams were pandas, students would be eating eucalyptus leaves instead of crack".

Eventually there were two main gates one each to the twins. And a fence dividing the two cutting across their umbilical cord. And women would turn their heads and up their noses when they had to face each other in their verandas. And kids would be warned not to mix with the 'other' so that their hands and minds are not polluted.

In arithmetic, 'addition' is simplest and 'division' hardest. In Life it is the other way round.

The main culprit is: 'Garden'.

Typically one family doesn't care for gardening and is happy to just keep the ground clean enough that kids can play. The other twin is a born-gardener: 'I could grow a ton of rice in this hectare if they permit. At least let me have a kitchen garden and a flower garden'.

Murphy's Law. I never saw two twins equally enthusiastic and possessive about their gardens. Call it the 'Cussedness of Nature!'

But IIT KGP could never enforce 'Cattle Discipline'. And, since there was no 'Boundary Wall' encircling IIT then, cows & goats of off-IIT Hijli were 'encouraged' to peep in and keep IIT Gardens 'slate-clean'.

I was told that IIT KGP is now an Impregnable Fort; after an IIT Delhi Professor was shot at in Bangalore (there must have been some Error!). They threatened me two years ago that none, not even its Glorious Pensioners, would be allowed in unless they produce their biometric IDs. But India being India and KGP being KGP, my wife and I could drive in and out Royally day and night in a Private Taxi, with none to as much as ask us to stop.

And that was during the middle of Spring Fest 2010, when Security should have been Z+++!.

End of part I

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