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Sunday, February 22, 2009
Hyderabadi Bargains
He says 80, I smile;
And then 70, I scowl;
50, he beckon;
30, deal's done;
And yet I feel a fool!
("the state of being distended, enlarged, swollen from internal pressure"....Medical Dictionary) as to the briefest and precisest Definition of Life (Brevity being the Soul of Wit).And then 70, I scowl;
50, he beckon;
30, deal's done;
And yet I feel a fool!
I was wondering what was the hurry;...looks like somewhat less than a billion Dollars of NASA Search-for-ET-Life-Project are in for bargaining.
Ha, now I know...Bargaining!
Well, apparently after some Hard Bargaining they did come up with a more or less agreeable definition...it is the briefest alright, just about 10 simple words even I can follow. If you think I am going to leak it out and spoil the fun for Presidency College Alumni, you have read me wisely but not well.
That is just the Definition of Life.
As for Meaning of Life, which is quite a different kettle of fish (sorry!), I am not going to let any Nobel-Busybody define the Meaning or Meaninglessness of my Life for me, it being as intensely a Personal Matter as my ATM PIN, till it is phished (a "variant of phreaking-influenced-fishing" as my online Webster tells me).
Nor even Maugham.
But I digress, as usual.
Coming back to Bargaining, there is no field of human endeavor that is not touched by Bargaining.
Take the august Judiciary symbolized by that cute blindfolded Dame with a Hyderabad Raddiwala Balance in her pale hand. One would expect nil-bargaining there. But no, I am told that there is what is spicily called Plea Bargaining even by confirmed criminals.
Talking of criminals, we read (past as well as past participle of read, re: conjugation of verbs, conjugation not to be confused with conjugal which is quite a different fish...!) in our school books that CID stood for Criminal Investigation Department. I was upset by this Criminal Expansion. (But one should never trust school books implicitly: As Feynman was exploding, reading in his basement text books fit for prescribing in schools, lots of Bargaining was going on behind his back even in his Gold Rush State).
I stand corrected: CID nowadays stands for Crime Investigation Department, like or unlike maybe CPI is just neither or no more not for Crime Party of India,....look at how much hedging I did in that first subsidiary adjectival clause following the second Principal Clause, the second parenthetic subsidiary clause being this, which is indeed the third, followed by this fourth subsidiary pitifully exclamatory clause: "Miss Groby Help!" (see the Post: Hinglish Semantics.)
Yes, Hedging Funds, first cousin of Bargaining Pleas.
In Politics, Bargaining is known as horse-trading...again we are on to horses and horsing around (horse-trading: "negotiation accompanied by mutual concessions and shrewd bargaining": Free Online Dictionary).
In Religion, it is all over the place in all major religions as far as I know (it is those Bargain Sales of infamous Indulgences by the Papal Church that so infuriated Martin Luther and led to Reformation, largely).
In my part of South India, my mother taught us early to Bargain with Balajee, the resident Deity of the beautiful Tirumala Seven Hills.
Unlike other austere gods and goddesses who insist on animal or even humane sacrifices, Balajee is easily pleased. Suppose you want to pass in First Class after a miserable performance in your Exams (you having been otherwise busy). You just pray to him offering him Rs 100 for a Third Class, 200 for Second Class and finally your curly stylized hair for a High First Class. And after the results are out, you know precisely where you stand vis-a-vis Balajee (Balajee doesn't demand Advance Cash-Down or EMIs....he just waits and smiles).
In more critical cases like the health of your child who is having fits with 106 deg Fahrenheit temperature, her mother Bargains with Him that she would drop in His Hundi ALL the gold-ornaments that happen to be on her body at that moment: there is a beautiful word for it: "Niluvu Dopidi" (literally the Lord is to do a "Standing Robbery" of her ornaments).
If the child is male, cute, fair, one without a second, the mother may even offer her hair and get completely tonsured.....didn't some well-known Actress of Perpendicular Cinema do literally that for verisimilitude?
Ask your Mother for the Meaning of your Life when you were having those spasms.
Don't think we are the only weak-kneed Deity-Bargainers: I vaguely recall a Wodehouse story (I beg to be corrected) where a passenger on an Ocean Liner caught in rough seas offers to donate a 6-foot Candle to his Church if he reaches land safe...but when he sees by and by the possibility of his safe-landing, he just mutters when reminded: "Let me set foot on land first and RUN....catch me if I give even a 6-inch candella!" (Like novella, eh?).
And finally Promotion of the Campus Husband...my wife didn't tell me in so many words, but I saw she was skipping her beloved breakfast (making it up in Lunch & Dinner?) till the results were safely out.
And she later fed our erstwhile Diro sumptuous Dal Vadas when he visited our Qrs C1-97 trying his best to make me work on a Paper of his on Lasers that was uppermost on his mind then...but you know me, I Bargained with my Balajee that I would stop my Woolgathering at Harrys forever if I come out of this life-threatening laser-thing unscathed.
The Lord was kind to both my wife and me; but as for me keeping my end of the Bargain, (see above candella promise) ...maybe just for a rainy afternoon.....
But, as you well know, I did write a Laser-Booklet which Prof ST Abidi, Chairman, Nehru Museum whisked away and published as NMST 001.
I am told this was a sell-out. It was published free of cost because Three Wise Magi gifted everything needed for the fledgling venture: 1. Paper by Dean, SRICC, 2. Printing by IIT Press, 3. (Non-existent) Royalties by the celebrated Author.
STA priced it at differential rates: Rs 15 for the IIT Public, Rs 25 for other Museums, and $50 for Edwin Taylor of MIT (to whom I shrewdly Dedicated it) who thereupon was made a Life Member of NMST.
STA told me that this was the first venture that made profits for NMST by virtue of his phenomenal skills at Hard Bargaining.
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3 comments:
Since you brought up the "Meaning of Life", here's what Monty Python had to say about it
"Why are we here? What's life all about?
Is God really real, or is there some doubt?
Well, tonight, we're going to sort it all out,
For, tonight, it's 'The Meaning of Life'.
What's the point of all this hoax?
Is it the chicken and the egg time? Are we just yolks?
Or, perhaps, we're just one of God's little jokes.
Well, ça c'est 'The Meaning of Life'.
Is life just a game where we make up the rules
While we're searching for something to say,
Or are we just simply spiralling coils
Of self-replicating DN-- nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay.
What is life? What is our fate?
Is there a Heaven and Hell? Do we reincarnate?
Is mankind evolving, or is it too late?
Well, tonight, here's 'The Meaning of Life'.
For millions, this 'life' is a sad vale of tears,
Sitting 'round with really nothing to say
While the scientists say we're just simply spiralling coils
Of self-replicating DN-- nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay.
So, just why-- why are we here,
And just what-- what-- what-- what do we fear?
Well, ce soir, for a change, it will all be made clear,
For this is 'The Meaning of Life'. C'est le sens de la vie.
This is 'The Meaning of Life'."
And talking of "Meaninglessness of...", perhaps Monty Python's "Galaxy song", might help put things in perspective
"Whenever life get you down, Mrs. Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enu-hu-hu-huuuuff
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour
That's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way
Our galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars
It's 100,000 light-years side-to-side
It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light-years thick
But out by us it's just 3000 light-years wide
We're 30,000 light-years from galactic central point
We go round every 200 million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
Because there's bugger all down here on Earth"
This 'Anonymous' is always bursting with such lovely poetry........
but..
"he wishes to dye his whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
that they can't be seen"...
..sigh!
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