Betridden

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Had a hectic day traveling all day in my son's sedan as a spectator quark.

It is easy enough to book an apartment in Hyderabad whenever you wish to do so. Just browse the papers and the web; you get dozens of upcoming Gated Communities, all of them castles in the sky, with the default Club House, Swimming Pool, Spas of various denominations, Greenery, Walks for the Seniors and Play Area for subjuniors and Shopping Malls for the ladies.

Toss a coin, say your prayers, write the check and forget.

But the chicks come home to roost, if you are unlucky, within just a couple of years...you get a letter asking you to take possession paying up the hefty remnants for the Double Car Park, Manzira Water and stuff when you are already broke. And there is the fear that they may cancel your allotment and return your measly money and sell it to the highest bidder...it is all there in the fine print which you never read.

So, you take 'possession' and try to forget it...it won't do...it is your sweet home after all and so you have got to move from where you have ensconced yourself comfortably in a heavily rented apartment like a couple of birds in their nest.

So, you invite the carpenter, plumber, electrician, 'griller' and several such undesirable folks whose only aim is to empty your lean pocket.

And if you are like me with the precious furniture of two couples and a sweet kid called Ishani, the effort to move is mind-boggling.

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Anyway, as I said, I am dog-tired today and need bed-rest.

So, I will skip 'serious' blogging for the night.

This business of 'serious' efforts always reminds me of the perennial complaint from my erstwhile colleagues that I never did 'serious' research although I kept publishing one 'paper' a year for over forty years:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/10/serious-stuff.html

According to them, my eminently forgettable first 'paper' of the size of a lady's hankie in Current Science with the bamboozling title like: "Temperature dependence of nuclear quadrupole resonance in cyanuryl chloride" qualifies, but my most famous academic gown in AJP that brought me accolades from MIT and entered into EFT & JAW's book doesn't, just because AJP is a 'teaching journal'...that is the credit they give to teaching, sigh!

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So, I cheat tonight by quoting excerpts from ToI front page.

Proddutur is a small town in Kadapa district (Our British Rulers in their perverted way spelled it as Cuddappah) famous for indiscriminate killing of opponents.

Here I am reminded of my dismay in my early days in West Bengal where I found that two well-built youths enter into a brawl over some fishy matter and in seconds a crowd of 50 gathers around them, all taking sides and shouting. I was keenly expecting at least a fistfight...but nothing happens...the crowd dissolves as soon as their lung power is exhausted.

But in Proddutur, nothing of that sort happens: two youth look daggers at each other over an apparently trivial matter of precedence in a pan shop, and before anyone notices, they draw their hidden daggers and wound each other if not kill.

Anyway Proddutur, in our childhood, was known only for its rumbustious brawls.

But times have changed over half a century and now it is known for its brighter side:

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G Arun Kumar / TNN reports:

"After Amar Singh, it is Jagan's turn to go to jail. This is the talk doing the rounds in Jagan's home turf of Kadapa district....

While people believe that Jagan would be sent to jail sooner or later, a heavy betting running into crores of rupees on the timing of his arrest is on...

...Proddutur is a commercial hub in Kadapa district where gold traders, textile dealers and contractors rub shoulders with powers that be and count on big money. They are always looking for means to bet...

...So much so, a group of persons were betting on whether it would rain in Kadapa or not when it was pouring in Proddutur the other day. Betting is culture in Proddutur. It's no surprise that the betting on Jagan's arrest has run into crores...

...The district people are of the opinion that all leaders are corrupt and that Jagan is no different. They are convinced that he will be sent to jail....

...Some would bet on Jagan's arrest on a particular date (say Sept 15), while others would bet that he won't be arrested on that particular date. Within minutes, lakhs of rupees change hands...

...Sources said that heavy betting is already on whether mining baron Gali would get bail or not..."

gps: Go to Proddutur...why go to Ascot?

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Tailpiece

I bet with myself (always a safe thing to do) that my favorite girl-author Shobhaa would write her Hinglish piece today on the latest terror strike.

And I won.

Her 'bombing pieces' are as regularly unfailing as the bombers.

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Allergy

Allergy is specific to each body.

And I get gooseflesh and pimples and rash all over my body whenever I happen to read the word: Paradigm.

There is something bumptious about the ubiquitous word.

Don't believe me?

Here is Webster:

"paradigm: a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly : a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind"

Chee Chee, no, Shobhaa-di?




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