"Women cannot receive even the most palpably judicious suggestion without arguing it; that is, married women"
-------------------------------Mark Twain
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I vividly recall this typical argument between my HM-father and my worldly-wise mother:
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GVR, (an otherwise well-to-do) part-time cub reporter for The Hindu in our small town, used to take the help of HM in rendering a hopefully publishable town-item into printable English. When a couple-of-inches-long cruelly abridged version happened to appear in print once a month or so, the cub would be so pleased and excited that his joy knew no bounds on his laudable 'recognition'. He would go round the town and show off his (ghost-written) column to one and all who mattered (I doubt if he got any remuneration at all from The Hindu).
GVR also happened to be our town's Stockist-Supplier of The Hindu, which perhaps fetched him a tiny commission. As a mark of gratitude he used to supply The Hindu free to my father, who was overwhelmed that he got The Hindu scot-free!!!. It meant that he didn't have to spend Rs 30 a month, could read it whenever he wished, and also sell the piled up back-number Hindus at the end of the month as raddi and get another 15 Rupees.
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Father: See, GVR is gifting me Rs 45 every month for just writing up a few sentences into printable English!
Mother: How come? The Hindu costs only Rs 30; that's just the worth of GVR's gift.
Father: But I get Rs 15 by selling it, no?
Mother: But anyone who gets the Hindu earns Rs 15 automatically by selling it. So GVR is not gifting the extra Rs 15. The cost of his gift for him is just Rs 30.
Father: He could always have taken back today's Hindu tomorrow, sell it himself and pocket that Rs 15. Since he is leaving the Hindu back-numbers to myself, he IS gifting me that Rs 15 too. And moreover, I get to read it too. If he didn't gift it I would have to spend Rs 20 from my pocket to buy the cheaper Indian Express. Which means that the actual worth of GVR's gift adds up to a whopping Rs 65.
Mother: But, if you bought Indian Express for Rs 20, you would get back Rs 10 by selling it; so its actual cost to you is only Rs 10. And, moreover, you could always walk into the mohalla's Free Reading Room at your leisure and read The Hindu, Express, Andhra Prabha, Andhra Patrika absolutely free. So, GVR's gift is worth only the Rs 15 you get by selling it and keeping the money to yourself instead of returning it to him.
Father: But I can't go to the Reading Room in the morning since I have to go to school. And by late evening the copy of the Hindu would be missing, carried home by some enthusiast, to be returned next morning.
Mother: What's wrong in reading it next morning?
Father: By next morning the news is stale and worthless.
Mother: Not so, not so!....You always listen to the morning's 9 AM News Bulletin on the AIR English News. So, the newspaper gives only masala-details which can always wait till tomorrow
Father: It would be as tasty a treat as yesterday's stale Sambar.
Mother: You don't dare compare the idle Hindu to the delicious food I cook and feed you, which is essential for your sustenance.
Father: It just happens that food for thought is as essential as food for the body
Mother: I listen to the afternoon 3 P M Telugu News and that is good enough for me to know all the news that is worth listening to.
Father: There are also educative and entertaining articles written in chaste English which are no 'news' but 'views'.
Mother: Indira Gandhi said that she reads just the news in the day's paper; and she makes up her own views herself; which she wouldn't like to borrow from others second or third hand.
Father: And that is why she couldn't get the public opinion and got killed sadly by her own security men. Moreover, Hindu is full of advertisements. They are very useful.
Mother: The only ads worth listening to come from the Commerce News of AIR at 4 P M. And that reminds me: the price of gold is shooting up and it is time you buy a few ornaments for your daughters as their wedding trousseau.
Father: It is getting late; but let me read this article in today's Hindu Weekly Magazine: It is all about the fatal weakness Indian women have for gold. It is written by the eminent writer, F L Brayne: "Jewelery and the Proper Position of Women in India"
Mother: All you men are smooth escapists....
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Shyamal writes:
-
"Now I know why
Gps doesn’t write to me
He is too busy blogging
Has no time for reading
My poems and Witty Ditty"
gps:
I guess I owe Shyamal an apology: His wonderful gift of the book of his poems lies unread.
The fact is that my eyesight is not what it was even a few months ago. I don't enjoy reading anymore...all my 'pocket books' are in fine print...it is a punishment. Even the mails I get happen to be in small print, and I have to click them in the 'Reply' mode, en bloc 'bold' them, and increase the size of the text. You may have noticed that all my blogposts are em-'boldened'.
And so I have taken to blogging a piece everyday. It is a challenge. There is no challenge for me in reading or watching TV anymore (except for the vision).
A couple of millennia ago Cicero said that old age can be delayed only by bullying oneself to undertake tasks to the very limit of one's capacity. His own method was to learn new languages. Everyone...his own madness.
Blogging a readable piece everyday (readability being the only criterion);..,.....I never 'worked' this hard any time in my life. It is a 24/7 activity. Nowadays what little I read is only with the selfish motive of fishing a suitable topic for the day's post.
So sorry Shyamal!
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gps:
The limerick bug seems to have bitten Supratim too. He shortly relaxed the tight embrace of his 'biological' students and sent this charming couple:
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"At iitkgp there lived to profess
A physicist called GPS;
Now that he is retired,
He claims of Physics he is tired
But blogs nightly in dubious dress
From limericks to history
GPS in spite of his artistry
Craves adoring fans
For reasons
That remain a mystery"
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gps:
Actually, 'limerick' is a highly structured animal with all sorts of anapestic ["a metrical foot consisting of two short syllables followed by one long syllable or of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable (as unaware)", wow!!!] stuff; but for the likes of us, anything goes!
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5 comments:
I have to add a footnote which GPS in his magnanimity decided to leave out. My first limerick (original version) was not quite a limerick, I could not get the last line to rhyme with the first 2 lines so i had to make it sort of rhyme with the 3'rd and 4'rth lines. GPS's elegant solution was to replace my last 2 words with "dubious dress".
And that explains the bawdiness!
OK!
To set the record straight, "dubious dress" was a replacement to "questionable attire".
It is not so bad as the: "replace crankshaft with piston" of an earlier blog.
To help you with reading fine print, you could increase the size of your browser's display. How to do it varies with the kind of browser, but I'm sure most browsers have the feature.
But I like your blogs in boldface. It has become a sort of identification trait.
"Now I know why Gps doesn’t write to me He is too busy blogging Has no time for reading My poems and Witty Ditty"
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