My India 11 - 1950-55

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To continue with the alternate therapies of our Village:

(2) Amulets: Our Village had a sizable population of Muslims as I said repeatedly in my blogposts. And we all lived in perfect harmony, each minding their own business, customs, festivals and participating in each others' traditions harmoniously.

We were periodically visited by wandering Hakims, well-known for their knowledge and piety. They used to look at any patient in the household proffered to them, pray a little and bring out from their satchels what I can only refer to as amulets or talismans, or tawizes of sort. They had the appearance of a couple of cms long and a few mms radius cylinders made of white metal. They were tied to our shoulders by silk or twine thread. We were supposed to wear them as long as they lasted. No one is supposed to prise them open and look for the contents, if any. Maybe a powder or nothing. I feel sorry now that I felt browbeaten then and didn't pry, which I would now do, but I am no longer in my Village. The beauty of it was that they cost nothing. Mother used to just give a glass of water or maybe a fruit or two and then they go away reciting Urdu pieces of sweet-sounding poetry.

[Aside: At KGP in B-140 Qrs, a set of boys and grownups used to invade our Qrs, knowing my wife's weakness for Shirdi Sai Baba. They wore black dresses and would ring the bell, try to barge in when my wife or maid opens the door, but just into the lobby. One of them, just a kid of 12 or so was prolific in his words and eye-commands and tell tall tales to my wife about her 'inner' secrets of long-last ancestral family or something. I never used to either indulge him or expel him. Live and Let Live! He would ask for a tenner and when my wife used to offer it, he would do something with it and return it to her and ask her to keep it in her Puja Room as a charm. No problem. My wife was impressed by his absolutely selfless blessings, and used to tell me about it. I kept silent.

And, after a couple of these visits, one fine rainy morning, when I was busy preparing for my gul in the afternoon lecture, he visited our Qrs again and apparently 'commanded' my wife to fish me out. She was by then also scared, because these saints who are absolutely selfless can bless as well as curse. She came in and told me sheepishly, knowing my no-nonsense nature, that her Boy-Saint is asking for me. I then got wild and barged into the lobby and asked him abruptly to let me know 'how much' quickly, since I was in a hurry. He was taken aback and said that since he and his party were embarking on a Shirdi Yatra by walk, he would love to have an umbrella gifted to him. I then took out one from its peg and gave it to him and asked: 'enough?'. He then greedily looked at the two others that were hanging (I am an Umbrella Devotee of RKN and in KGP, you need at least a half-dozen in working condition for a family of three plus the indispensable maid, with whom the umbrella traffic is strictly one-way). I then pulled out the second and threw at him nonchalantly. He was eying the third. I took that out also, and flung it at him. He deftly picked it as if it were a cricket ball at the second slip. I then asked him to quit and never again show his selfless face in our lobby. From then on, neither he nor any of his kind rang our bell, and my wife was chastened. To this day she would never like to be reminded of this incident].

Coming back to amulets, they perhaps work at some level. I don't know.

But, having lived in Bengal all my working life, I was very curious about the Bengali penchant for rings with stones, on their fingers. Indeed my favorite TV Idol is Bhappi Lahiri. I don't watch much of TV, but I have left standing instructions to everyone in the household that they should call me up whenever Bhappida is on. I just love him. He has a 'presence' I haven't seen in any other filmy folks. For one thing, he is so overwhelmingly bedecked with malas around his neck and body and has so many rings on his fingers that I lost count. Then again, he has a beautiful set of eyes covered with dark glasses. And he has a silence and calm about him that is enchanting. His smile is a curative to all that is absurd in the filmy dunia. He is one who is never caught on the wrong foot because no one dares fling nonsense at him.

OK, one day I was chatting with Professor C L Roy in one of our JEE things. I asked him why he wore a ring with a red stone all the while. I asked him if it was just fashion, or to please a wife or mother, or anything else serious. He replied to my astonishment that this stone has curative properties for his bronchial problems (he was a chain smoker).I said he must be kidding. I reminded him of the Sanskrit saw: Prishtha thadanath dantha bhangah! ('kick the arse and teeth will break!'). He said he was serious. He was a Solid State Theorist and knew all about slow and steady diffusion of metals from skin to the interior of targeted body organs. I didn't hear of the word then but read it later; 'Prof CLR was wearing his ring with stone as an ant-nicotine patch'.

So all those amulets of our childhood were 'patches' for various ailments.

As soon as I retired and tried to settle in this weird Hyderabad, I was struck by a mild hypertension and stuff. The doc here told me that I was beginning to age and must reconcile to it and leave my wild ways and eat heartily. I told him I can't eat like a Hyderabadi (4 meals a day minimum). I consider eating and mating as necessary evils, and in old age, one must happily get out of the habit. He then suggested I take a capsulette of Riconia Silver, one per day at bed-time. It cost Rs 5 and I said I would try since I can just about afford the price. And from day 1 of falling into its charms, Riconia Silver has found in me an addict. It just works wonders. I then looked at its composition. I found it has about 40 'micronutrients' in it. This word I first read in my sons' class X Science Book (CBSE) in the Chapter on Agriculture: soil and its micronutrients. Oh, well! I may not be eating food, but straightaway eating the soil from which it is produced. The capsulette has all the edible elements of the Mendeleev's Periodic Table. I have converted many of my relatives and friends to Riconia Silver. We are all a happy lot. I just go about with one meal a day happily; which I call my 'breakfast' (in the real sense of breaking a 24-hour fast).

This conquest of 'Chemistry' over mind was brought face to face to me when I fell into a Severe Depression. Now, I knew I was in for it when the symptoms were unmistakable: Prof TKD of Cryogenics at IIT KGP, who is basically a Physicist, one day told me when I happened to walk alongside of him, that I am known as 'Professor Cool' in their circle. I didn't probe him because, coming from Cryogenics, he must be knowing all about Low Temperature Behavior. I took it that he meant I never lose my temper, since I don't have one to lose (even with Shirdi Sai Fake Devotees). Well, I take it to mean that my thoughts are slow-going, say at the rate of about 60 words a minute like the Lower Grade Typists. (Thoughts are nothing but unspoken words).

So, one fine morning I found that the rate has gone first up to 120 and then 500 and reached a pinnacle of 1000 wpm and still going up and up. The result was that I lost whatever little sleep I was addicted to. Then I visited a shrink. He immediately asked me what was my Profession. And then said it was a Professional hazard, and scribbled a couple of cheap tablets and asked me to get lost. I asked him what would they do to my system. He dismissed the query saying that they would help restore my 'biochemical imbalance'. I just was dumbstruck. I thought that my thoughts were my personal possessions and he says they are just 'biochemical imbalances'!

Well, then I remembered a book which I read 5 years ago which details how our biology is governed by minute amounts of 'micronutrients' of just the right milligram composition.

I retrieved the book just now:

It is titled: 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson. Now, don't think I would ever 'buy' such a book. It was gifted to me by Surptim and so I HAD to read it.

I almost forgot about it till an hour or two ago. Apart from other sweet words, the dedication ends, as an afterthought, with the Supratim Command:

'May You Never Retire from Teaching Physics'.....Supratim, July, 2005 (exactly a month before I retired from IIT KGP).

Ahem...just this morning I got a phone-call chased by an e-mail from the VC of a certain Knowledge University asking me to give a set of 50 Video Lectures for the benefit of their First Year Students.

Sorry, Supratim, my Teaching Physics is confined to my blogs.

I obey your command thus far and no further!





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