Pope & the Peanut

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We read dozens of books, enjoy them, and put them away.

It is only rarely that we meet with a Passage at which we suddenly halt, seeing that the author is saying what we wanted to articulate all along but felt too puny to say it.

I had this experience the other day while reading the Compilation of Letters of Feynman titled: Perfectly Reasonable Deviations (from the Beaten Track) gifted to me by Supratim.

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I was playing marbles on the streets of my Village Muthukur, when the results of our Pre-University Exam came out in the Newspaper in 1958. I was 14 then.

Seeing my Roll Number in the First Class, my HM-Father sent up his thankful salutations to Heaven with folded hands because it meant that all his worries were over: in just three more years, I would be getting my B Sc from VR College at Nellore, a stone's throw away, get absorbed there as a Demonstrator, and would be Demonstrating and earning money on the side by Coaching, minting enough of it to build our Own House in a decade and taking over his many family responsibilities.

But, he never imagined I would stand First in the University in the so-called Science Group till the Marks List arrived; and my MD Doctor Uncle KKM from Vizagh, 500 miles away, arrived carrying that path-breaking List.

KKM whisked me away to Vizagh and admitted me into the select group of a Dirty Dozen students from all over the AU doing B Sc (Hons). The Hons thing shattered my father's every dream. For, when I was playing Indian Cricket (Gulli Danda) in our Village 4 years later, KKM once again brought the Marks List gloating that his faith in me was vindicated and I once again stood First in that Learn-by-Rote University (to this day my memory for things I don't understand remains phenomenal).

Then started my precipitate Downfall: I ran away from Vizagh mid-stream from my Ph D Program to IIT KGP. And took a decade there to get my Ph D (at last!), a good dozen years after my Masters (some sort of a Record).

A dozen years is a long while; and they turned out to be my Golden Years: everyone in my family, led by KKM, struck my name off the Family Roll of Honors, Hall of Fame, Mailing List....

By then I developed a Vested Interest in Failure: A sort of Immense Peace dawns on one who is written off...you are henceforth free to do what pleases you instead of what others expect you to do for their Pleasure...

Fast Forward a couple of decades when I reached 50 or so...

I get a Letter from Dr KKM that he got to know from my innocent father that I am in touch with an MIT Prof...

Dr KKM had spent a year at Johns Hopkins Medical School at Baltimore and knew that MIT was good enough...

He asked me to send him my Achievements, highlighting my MIT Connection...

In my foolishness I did that, to please KKM who was solely responsible for my Misadventures at IIT KGP, which as you know was the very Heaven during my time there...

Within a week I get a Packet containing a Brochure and an Application Form from Dr KKM, asking me to just sign it, attach the Annexures, and leave the rest to him...promising me that he would do the rest...and I would be able to affix FNABCDEF after my blessed name in about six months...

Me: FNABCDEF?

I dumped the Packet quietly into the Great Basket.

He didn't give up so easily...

When I was traveling with my family by Madras Mail, he came down to the Vizagh Station to meet me and dump in my lap another copy of the same...

I was ashamed to say either Yes or No to my Lifetime Benefactor... I was feeling guilty and was kicking myself to have set the ball rolling foolishly...certain things need to be snipped in the bud..but how could I guess...?

He gave up by and by but never forgave me...

But I made him immensely happy, visiting his place with my wife and son when my aunt (Mrs KKM) passed away prematurely; and spoke up in the Ceremonial 10th Day Gathering how MUCH our entire family is indebted to her for keeping me and my elder sister for two good years at their home and taking care of us...his eyes were moist...and he passed away soon after...

But how could I tell him that I had the Unique Honor of getting a Solid Rebuke on 3-Lions-Embossed Parchment Paper from His Excellency the Governor of West Bengal for declining consistently for over a decade the coveted offer of a Member of the Selection Committee of a University for which he was the Chancellor!

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Feynman's famous lines:

"..I am sorry that you had to be bothered about this matter of my wanting to resign my membership in the Academy. It must be quite a job worrying about all the peculiar whims of all the strange birds that make up your flock...

....My desire to resign is merely a personal one; it is not meant as a protest of any kind, or a criticism of the Academy or its activities. Perhaps it is just that I enjoy being peculiar. My peculiarity is this: I find it psychologically very distasteful to judge people's "merit". So I cannot participate in the main activity of selecting people for membership. To be a member of a group, of which an important activity is to choose others deemed worthy of membership in that self-esteemed group, bothers me. The care with which we select "those worthy of the honor" of joining the Academy feels like a form of self-praise. How can we say only the best must be allowed to join those who are already in, without loudly proclaiming to our inner selves that we who are in must be very good indeed. Of course I believe I am very good indeed, but that is a private matter and I cannot publicly admit that I do so, to such an extent that I have the nerve to decide that this man, or that, is not worthy of joining my elite club...."

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Powerful writing!

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