Boost-Boast

============================================================

Prospero:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158

****************************************************************************************

In the life of every Person, Family, Province, Nation and Planet (eventually) there arise moments of distress, desolation and despair when they look for icons of inspiration to keep them going.

**************************************************************************************************

I think Britain takes recourse to her Shakespeare.

When the French used to ridicule her as a Nation of Shopkeepers (a phrase used by Napoleon) without any legacy of culture, arts or literature, the British demurred: "We do have some who wrote pleasing verse", meaning their Shakespeare.

Walking into the Central Library at KGP one evening I found a gorgeous Coffee Table Book titled: Heritage of Britain. Lovely production. I half wanted to steal it because it couldn't be issued (it was Reserved) and there was no way I could buy it. So I read it serially over a week sitting in the CL.

It started with Stonehenge and ended with perhaps the Second World War's Churchill Speeches.

In its Literature Chapter there was this Boxed Shakespeare Quote from Tempest cited above.

Since then I must have read this Quote or looked for it or recalled it a dozen times.

************************************************************************************************

US being a kid with little burden of History has fewer icons.

But I guess Lincoln takes the lead there. Of all the wars fought by the US, the most distressing must have been its Civil War since it threatened its Nationhood: but for Lincoln, United States could well be Divided States, balkanized and vivisected. In the midst of its far-flung wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a sinking Economy, Americans chose a President who chose to take his Presidential Oath on Lincoln's Bible.

It is a different matter that in his youthful ebullience he goofed in public and had to take it again in private:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

He came, he saw, he smiled

"Lincoln climbs down his pedestal to watch Obama take oath":

His dream come true,
He dropped down to view.
When on his Bible
The novice did fumble,
He smiled and withdrew

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2009/02/he-came-he-saw-he-smiled.html

************************************************************************************************

Personally I would like to think that Mahatma Gandhi is India's Icon. Many would disagree violently (in particular, Bengalis and Punjabis who suffered most from Partition for which they hold Muslim-Appeasing Gandhi squarely responsible...history will have the last word on this...many would blame Jinnah or Nehru or even Curzon).

But to me he is the most interesting and iconic Indian of the last century; warts and all.

Government of India (shyly) deputes her Billionaires to bid for his memorabilia.

************************************************************************************************************

My Father, who took over as HM of a new School that he built up from scratch at our seaside Village, Muthukur, had the privilege of choosing the framed photos that would adorn the walls of his Office. And, as HM's son, I visited his Office a hundred times in 5 years, mostly to supply Coffee in a Thermos on Sundays when he used to work overtime. And I used to stare at those huge portraits and get inspired by them... village kids are impressionable. And I found that half of the photos were of Bengalis. Bengal made a great impression on me then on which continues till now.

I guess most Bengalis would vote Tagore as their Icon (Shyamal was almost about to beat me up when I passed a light-hearted comment on Tagore).

Tagore himself is quoted as saying: "Whatever else they may forget, Bengalis would never forget my songs".

I was very impressed when Aniket, who quotes many English poets like Frost at the drop of his specs, chose Tagore's lines when I pressed him into service to write his impression of SDM whom he never saw but admired and got hooked.

The result is striking: Fourfold Way is second only to Reco Mela - 2 in the number of hits it got within 24 hours of posting it.

***********************************************************************************************

For Maharashtra it is Shivajee or none.

Once there was this very charming Dr Chitnis on leave at KGP from Cornell for two years staying in our Faculty Hostel. And during 1967- 69, with Bengal in the throes of Naxal violence, our Bengali brethren were low in spirits.

One after-dinner night, Kunal Ghosh was pontificating that Indians got their Freedom doled out to them, having never won a war.

Quick came Dr Chitnis's quiet rejoinder: "That depends on who you mean by Indians"...

....meaning their Shivajee won several wars...

**********************************************************************************************************

From Boost, let us now come to Boast, something all of us are prone to do once in a while:

The flip side of Big Boasting is typified by this Aesop Fable:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

The Frog and the Ox

"Oh Father," said a little Frog to the big one sitting by the side of a pool, "I have seen such a terrible monster! It was as big as a mountain, with horns on its head, and a long tail, and it had hoofs divided in two."

"Tush, child, tush," said the old Frog, "that was only our Farmer White's Ox. It isn't so big either; he may be a little bit taller than I, but I could easily make myself quite as broad; just you see."

So he blew himself out, and blew himself out, and blew himself out. "Was he as big as that?" asked he. "Oh, much bigger than that," said the young Frog. Again the old one blew himself out, and asked the young one if the Ox was as big as that. "Bigger, father, bigger," was the reply. So the Frog took a deep breath, and blew and blew and blew, and swelled and swelled and swelled. And then he said: "I'm sure the Ox is not as big as this".

But at this moment he burst.

Self-conceit may lead to self-destruction.

http://fiction.eserver.org/short/aesop_fables.html

*************************************************************************************************

Boasting is not altogether bad...sulking is worse.

Let us hear our Autocrat on the subject:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

`"...Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it, is always imposing...Even in common people, conceit has the virtue of making them cheerful; the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequaled, is almost sure to be a good-humored person, though liable to be tedious at times.......".

***********************************************************************************************

I recall with pleasure two of my friends who were the most good-humored at KGP but 'liable to be tedious at times':

1. BM, my erstwhile colleague in our Phy Dept with whom I had the most cordial relations (the one who owed his recruitment to Ukridge) was simply unbeatable at this Boasting Game.

He came form an Aristocratic Family, had a lovely Society Lady as wife, was a Rotarian, was so well-dressed that his Tailor in Gole Bazaar gave him a whopping discount asking him only to 'promote' his name in the IIT Campus, his Chinese Cobbler charged him nothing for acting as his Male Model, his Drawing Room was frighteningly interior-decorated and so on and such...

But he would hog any conversation with his exploits. Whenever someone starts saying something good about himself, he would intervene and say a better thing about himself. Since I had nothing much to boast about except my deep knowledge of Wodehouse, I was his best listener: within a year, I knew all his exploits childhood onwards.

One day I was in a rather fractious mood and when he started boasting about something very clever he did, I butted in and started saying; "Listen BM! I made a big ass of myself today..."

Prompt came the default intervention: "Just listen to what a BIGGER Ass I made of myself the other day..."

2. There was this equally aristocratic SB in our Faculty Hostel, with the added feather in his cap that he did his B Tech at IIT KGP and had been the Culture Secretary of Nehru Hall.

To hear him speak, there was never any Cultural Event at IIT without his finger in that pie: he was into TDS (Bengali & English), TFS, SPICMACAY, SF, TMS, and ABCDEF...

And then there was this Science Congress Mela organized by IIT KGP in 1970. During that one week, there was a fabulous Cultural Event every night...the Who is Who of the Entertainment Industry of Bengal and the Rest of India, most of them in their prime, were there giving their Performances open to all IIT KGP residents: Pundit Ravi Shankar, Usha Iyer (not yet Uthup), Bismillah Khan, P C Sarkar (Original), Kuchipudi and Bharata Natyam Maestros...

SB claimed he was instrumental in fetching them all, they were all on first-name terms with him ("Sonjoy! Meet me when you next come home without fail and bring your friends too"); and what a big mess Science Congress Evenings would be but for him.

And asked me which Entertainment Event I liked best of all.

Trying to outsmart him for once, I replied: "I liked the Pandal best".

He then embraced me for a good 30 seconds and said:

"Shastry! You are the only one who recognized it...what a great trouble it was for me to design, erect and surround-sound it....those Philips guys simply were after me for my suggestions..."

*****************************************************************************************************

IIT KGP was too tiny to keep BM & SB within its (non-existent) 4 walls and so they left to better places soon to improve conditions there...

============================================================