Charming News

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President Pratibha Patil is visiting Hyderabad.

And trust DC to provide some entertainment to her, me and you.

The Reporter brilliantly covered her visit for DC. I just loved his article.

Here is an excerpt:

"...As Ms Pratibha Patil's five day visit to Hyderabad shows, it takes over 800 policemen, food testing experts, snake charmers, patrolling teams, medical staff and sundry others..."

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The Item Numbers are of course snake charmers and food testing experts.

1. Snake Charmers:

As soon as I read this, I went into a hilarious world of my own.

I saw Pratibhajee getting bored talking to all her visitors who wanted this, that or sundry favors.

She dismisses them all, giving one minute to each.

And then calls her Special Secretary (protocol) and requests him to please send for the Snake Charmer (SC), who arrives with the homely basket on his head, downloads it, opens its top, pokes the creature with the wrong end of his been, again and again, but finds that his breadwinner refuses to sway after giving a dissatisfied peek at her honored and bored guest, decommissions her (snake's) bespectacled hood and goes back to sleep.

Needless to say, our SC first scolds his cobra, then hits her, then catches her head by his hand and tries choking her, but finds that she just about hisses and tries to bite the hand that feeds her, unaware that he had de-fanged her (for which he got a certificate from the Secretary, Protocol).

And grins.

Pratibhajee is vastly more amused by this drama than a regular cobra dancing madly like so many teenagers in our Hyderabadi sweat dens.

And asks SC charmingly what went wrong (right).

"It must be my pauti Ishani...when I was getting ready she must have opened the basket and bajoed the been and made my cobra dance for hours...I should have checked it before coming here...sorry mam, forgive me please!"

And then, Pratibhajee smiles, pulls the veil of her Tangail sari down, takes out the Hyderabadi pearl necklace she got as a gift, hands it over demurely into the waiting palms of SC and asks him to present it as the Presidential Gift to li'l Ishani...

And thanks SC for giving her the most entertaining ten minutes of her life.

Ask me about ennui...I am the world-class expert on it (in spite of our minister). When I joined IIT KGP as an Associate Lecturer in 1965, there was this pyramidal teaching load: Associate Lecturer: 22 hours a week, Lecturer: 15 hours, Assistant Professor: 10 hours, Associate Professor: 6 hours, Professor: 3 hours (usually outsourced).

And there was no semester system.

But a 6-day-week.

So, during one typical week, I had to repeat the SAME Lecture on Ohm's Law to all the 6 Sections, one lecture a day to a different section...

Anyway, I have a suspicion that our DC Correspondent meant Snake Catcher and not Snake Charmer although the chap is the same, but duties are different, like our autowallas of Hyderabad who double as drivers and mechanics...

What is your guess?

2. Food Testing Experts

Here is the relevant para:

"Four scientific officers test (and taste) all food items before and after cooking and look for fungus, bitterness, and poison."

I guess the chap looking for fungus is ecstatic when he finds his mold; the one looking for bitterness likewise thrilled, the one looking for poison quietly dead, to be replaced by the unwilling fourth one.

I have a suspicion that our DC Correspondent wanted to say: 'check' instead of 'look', but he overslept and was in a hurry to file his report to beat the deadline; much like my students at KGP...

Your guess is as good as mine...

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