Science, Religion & the Nobel

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My Guru and Ph D Guide SDM used to Catch me and Have me (as that Sardarjee in NY joke goes) as a one-man captive audience in my final year with him; and talk nonstop for six hours at a stretch every Saturday and Sunday Evening at his Qrs (Mrs SDM fed me sumptuous loochies as Relief).

He used to talk on every subject under the Sun except my Thesis and Religion:

Thesis because I will run away as soon as he okays it, leaving him talking to the horses in his stable as Churchill used to do for rehearsals before his War Speeches in Parliament.

And Religion because he was too shy since it is an unscientific topic.

But once he slipped in one of his weak moments and let out that whenever he visits his elder sister (didi) at Gauhati, he reads her entire collection of Upanishads in Sanskrit.

And bit his tongue and changed the topic at once to Naxalite Ideology:

He was always scared (as he admitted to me) that pro-Naxalite students at IIT KGP hailing from his Calcutta will slit his throat as they apparently did to the HoD of Calcutta University....

That single year SDM was our HoD: his Administrative Acumen is better left unsung despite his boast that Administration is cakewalk compared to Theoretical Physics Research (He had to dourly apologize to Raamda in public for a snide remark he made to students that all Non-Researchers of his Department are Dead Wood....students found a golden opportunity to tom-tom this fruity stuff in that drab campus).

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Theoretical Physicists like Einstein and Dirac made laughing stock of themselves commenting needlessly on God. Feynman was cleverer...he declared that though his father was Jewish, he couldn't care for Religion...indeed I recall he made snide remarks on Jewish Theology Students who asked his Authoritative Opinion if Electricity was Fire.

The Retired Chief Engineer in our Apartment Block who first assaulted me with the question: "Can you follow English?" is very religious. He says he spends all his spare time reading and re-reading his Gita.

When he asked me that question on English, I was delighted that Here is an English Lover in this desolate and arid Deccan Plateau.

So, I gifted my 5 booklets (2 in verse and 3 in prose...Elephants in a Beetle...) as and when they arrived from the Printer, hoping that I would get some encouragement to carry on blogging...

He made only 2 comments in 3 years:

1. "I tried reading your booklets...but your English is quaint, quite unlike the English I learned at my School"

gps: I have no issue with this..rather I take it as a compliment.

2. "At your age you should be writing about religious topics"...

gps: This is funny...I think all my 3 Ishani booklets are deeply religious in the sense that they are attempts by an old man in a hurry to make some sense of his life and his world...which I think is the gist of religious quest..... ...

What do you say?...

Moreover, did I not, in half a blog, narrate the Heart of Raamayan, that took an entire verse to the Poet:

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Aaadau Raama Tapovanadi gamanam, hatva Mrigam kaanchanam,
Vaidehi haranam, Jataayu maranam, Sugriva sambhashanam,
Vaalee nigrahanam, Samudra taranam, Lankapuri dahanam,
Paschaat Raavana Kumbhakarna hananam, Etadhi Raamayanam!

......Ek Shloki Raamayaan

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As for encouragement, I got plenty of it in the past 24 hours:

Pratik: "That was absolutely brilliant. From the stage-setting with the Raam episode till the finis..."

Anushree: "We received your lovely book quite sometime back and enjoyed (short moment) reading it. This time Ishani's and Pratik's stories are the best!"

Aniket: "Enjoyed your latest piece as much as any other. Your writing seems to get better every day. Whatever happened to the blogger's block you experienced? Some avid admirer must have wished it away.."

Supratim: "During the week of your absence, I was quenching my thirst by re-reading your older booklets.."

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Please note the significant coincidence that all the above mentioned + the DQ of the 'Ogo Dada' fame are avid hilsa-lovers (of which there is going to be a whole blog in the near future).

I hereby Will that, as and when my blogs are awarded (posthumously as a special case) the Ig-Nobel for Religious Literature, these people should share it with my half-hilsa Ishani...

And I hereby appoint Google as the Executor of this Will hoping it survives That Long.


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