Halls of Fame

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Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.

......Mark Twain

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Mark Twain must have been in one of his famous moods when he said that. He has certainly escaped earthly oblivion. For, I heard of him when I was a mere kid of 10 in our obscure seaside Village, Muthukur (which is now becoming famous for its port Krishnapatnam from where millions of tons of iron ore are alleged to have been illegally exported to China, that wanted to become an all-time famous nation for her Olympiad, by folks who wanted to become famous by donating fabulous diamond-studded gold crowns to Lord Balajee at his famous shrine of Tirupati).

NB: There are as many as 5 'famouses' in the above para.

At that time Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were being serialized in one of our popular Telugu Weeklies and we used to fight for the possession of its issues.

Most everyone wants to become famous by hook or crook for something or the other. All famous Books of World Records like the Guinness and the Limca thrive on this greed for fame in the bosom of everyone. There are those who grow mustaches to unspeakable lengths balancing lemons on them and nails to unbelievable footage.

But I guess lasting fame comes to those who were busy thinking of something else and wholly immersed in it. Very few achieve lasting fame by spitting on their hands and going about it single-mindedly.

Note the word 'lasting' in the above sentence. For, there have been many who were famous for their fifteen minutes or even a few weeks. While I was living in Bengal, there was this newly started English Dialy that became famous later on by issuing a Sunday Supplement on the front page of which were photos of folks who regularly proved Einstein wrong. By the way, that was one easy way of going about it...pick on Einstein; or even Ramakrishnadeb proving that he was queer.

Money can buy ephemeral fame in one's own neighborhood. One day in the early 1970s I happened to be sitting behind HNB in what is now famously HIS Seminar Room awaiting the arrival of others for a Faculty Meeting. Prof G, a couple of years junior to him, arrived and sat beside HNB. And HNB started ragging him. Apparently Prof G had just joined the nascent Rotary Club of KGP Town. HNB said:

"Look, G, Rotary Club is for those like the Bhandaris who have ample money but desire fame whereas we have ample fame but desire money"

Prof R of one of those Departments that are sister things of Physics was a very jovial person. In fact too obtrusively jovial. He happened to visit Germany for a year where he was sharing digs with my classmate KLM at AU who naturally was excited that R knew me...auld lang syne senti.

On his return to KGP, R sought me out and talked to me extensively about their sojourn in Germany...I guess for the first time he heard a few good words about me from a third party. That was fine. But he had this brand new Maruti Van in the campus and he was fond of stopping bang in the middle of the busy road leading to Gate # 5 and picking up passengers, willing and unwilling. Those days I was trying to tone up my middle age system by taking walks to and fro the Insti. But, our timings used to match and Prof R would bid me to jump in and would brook no excuses from me.

And there was no need for me to invent small talk for those 3 minutes...he would do it single-handedly. Here is a snatch of our typical conversation:

He: Three years back I was visiting the US. At that time I was very famous in Physics.

Me: Is that so?

He: Yes, indeed I was very famous...

Me: Is that so...I didn't know...

He: Oh, Yes, yes, very famous...


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