Chemistry

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"A set of new faces working together in an ad, like Genelia D'Souza and Virat Kohili for Fastrack, works much better. The chemistry between a new couple is much more. Sadly, a marriage or a relationship sublimates chemistry to a lowest common denominator level."

...Deccan Chronicle

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That surely is a wow of a para for me!

My first and last delicious brush with chemistry (so far) involved the same element of the Periodic Table (Isn't that a whale of a Table?...Which chemist wouldn't love to have it etched on her Dining Table? When I first visited Prof MLM's Office at KGP in 1965 there was a huuuge Periodic Table hanging from his wall and he perhaps had it by heart).

Sometime towards my retirement, there was a spring cleaning of the ground floor labs and many crates of deal-wood were dumped (unopened maybe for decades) on the grass lawn outside their lab. I used to watch them on my walk to the Canteen and, like Pandora, was ever seized with curiosity what secret could they be concealing from prying eyes.

Come the first Nor' Wester, there were the usual pyrotechnics in the heaven and I walked out of my room on the first floor to the balcony in front of the Exam Office.

The lightning and thunder stopped, giving way to a downpour of lashing rain.

And suddenly there were pyrotechnics from the deal-wood boxes that were a much more attractive sight to watch. As the rainwater soaked into the boxes, there was loud sputtering, drumming, thundering, and finally the boxes were catching fire in rain one after the other.

Panic seemed to have gripped the Research Scholars (the Director's Office was close by); and the chappies one after the other were running out of their rooms braving rain, kicking the boxes hoping to douse the fire, but succeeding only in engulfing it...and retreating soaking wet to their labs.

And then I found a couple of caustic Chemistry Profs walking behind me chuckling:

"These Physics fools don' know how to store Phosphorus."

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That took me back half a century to my Village School whose HM was my Father. He was teaching us English but also doubled as our Science Teacher (damn good).

There was no lab in our School, but once a week my Father used to give us demos which were thrilling. I recall the HM walking into our Class followed by his Science Assistant with his matchbox and candle, trailed by his peon holding the apparatus...a delicious procession.

One day the demo was on Phosphorus (white and red).

There was this tub of water into which our HM, with tongs, took out a yellow piece from its bottle, dropped it, and led the claps while the loud sputtering pyrotechnics went on.

One student raised his hand and asked: "Why don't they catch fire in their bottled water?"

HM asked the chap to come forward and made him smell the bottle:

"Sir, it is kerosene!"

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Coming back to Genelia and Virat, the chemistry meant by the DC female correspondent must be the 'explosive' part of the subject, no?

Well, chemistry between man and woman is always explosive one way or the other.

But to say that marriage 'sublimates' chemistry is perhaps not quite accurate...maybe she meant that if they married by and by, Virat would be like Fire and Gen would be like Camphor...therey man ki karpur aur merey man ki maachis...bol radha bol...

But let me assure her that if properly consummated, marriage wouldn't make the camphor vanish 'leaving not a rack behind' a la Prospero, but would re-condense into cute li'l Ishanis.

And what about the 'lowest common denominator' bit?

Math has never been my strong suit but I heard in my School of only LCM and HCF but no LCD.

...but I am bitching...

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