Lollipops

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From The Rashtrabit, which is amalgamated with The Englishman's Friend:

"We warmly congratulate Khan Sahib Gobson Toady. He richly deserves the high honour awarded him, and we are truly delighted. It is the first time that such a high rank has fallen to a native's lot. At the same time, we would caution the Government not to cheapen such titles through excessive and indiscriminate award: that would cause chagrin to Indian Rai Sahibs and Khan Bahadurs, thereby impeding Europe's progress. Let Europeans be content with native titles like Knight, Baron, Marquis or Duke. However, as Mr Toady has indeed become a Khan Sahib, we would urge him to assiduously guard the signal honour of his station. We hope he will not let the shadow of seditious Liberty League fall on him."

...Parashuram in Ulat Puran (translated by Sukanta Chaudhuri and Palash Baran Pal)

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It is that time of the year here when Padma Awards get announced. I guess the awardees have already got their invitations in their mails. Without being cynical, I may say that while each awardee is thrilled to receive his letter, the happiness is somewhat muted when he sees the list of other awardees in his category (note the masculine gender...the fairer sex is different). I mean, the Padma Sri, say, would compare and feel inwardly (sometimes outwardly too) that he belongs rightly to the Padma Bhushan category.

And our Parshuram, almost a century ago, give or take a decade, wrote (see above): "we would urge him to assiduously guard the signal honour of his station."

There lies the rub...for, he wouldn't know what the future holds for him. I distinctly remember a TV Interview of the trio: R K Narayan, Raja Rao and a distinguished Civil Servant. While the two writers were appropriately modest and rather shy of their achievements, the Civil Servant-turned-Politician crowed: "Have you noticed that all the three of us here are Padma Bhushans?" or something like it.

Well, writers, like the present company ;-), stand or fall by their readers, not by their awards. But unfortunately the same is not true, rather, of Civil Servants, whose careers are at the mercy of their political bosses. This one in the trio was hit badly very soon by "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and lapsed into ignoble oblivion (maybe this is the only time he is in the recent 'media', as Dalia once glorified our blog). It is a safe bet to say that civil servants, politicians, businessmen, athletes, and such other figures of evanescent and treacherous fame be conferred their Padma Awards posthumoulsy (if that); for, far too many eagles of these professions are nowadays cooped up in the birthplace of Krishna, the B-i-L of Arjun (of the Arjun Awards fame).

Professions like the Military, I guess, can't do without their ranks and medals...they are unlike us...Death lurks for them everywhere, even in the skies, rather routinely even in peacetime. So, they have in a way, unlike teachers like me who at worst are hit by pieces of chalk and paper missiles when they turn to the blackboard, chosen to die for their Nation. The only trouble I had was that civilians are rather ill-educated about the meaning and significance of the various medals dangling from their chests and shoulders and can't figure out who is what. I say this from experience...in our Faculty Hostel, there were routinely half a dozen from the Armed Forces, training in the Radar and Communication Section. And I had to ask, not a very happy situation. There was only one friendly Squadron Leader (or was it Flight Lieutenant?) by name Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (not a Bengali but an Andhra) who was all the time talking about military protocol and stuff (Basudeb Ghosh, the wicked English Lecturer, used to refer to him as Parambok). But whenever I asked him about their medals and gallantry awards, he would soon switch to the elaborate procedures of court-martial, cashiering, clipping away ceremonially their epaulets, and outright dismissal...he was a born pessimist. Feynman says: "I had been brought up by my father against royalty and pomp (he was in the uniform business, so he knew the difference between a man with a uniform on, and with the uniform off---it is the same man)"

We, in the academics, too have our lollipops; the biggest, though not the wealthiest I am told, being the Nobel. Feynman says he wanted to refuse it...because he already had got his prize in that his Feynman Diagrams are used by one and all, except, unkind folks say, his co-awardee. He was advised against it by a Time Reporter, since it would be worse than accepting it. In this connection, I am reminded of Binoy, the friend and foil of Gora of Tagore (I am sure no Bengali reader of this blog read that novel, though all of them have it in their fathers' bookshelves). Gora asks Binoy why he had to accept and drink that cup of tea offered by Sucharita, he being a Hindu and she a Brahmo, taunting him: "Was it sweet enough?", to which Binoy retorts: "No, it was bitter...but rejecting it would have been more bitter"...he was in love with her sister ;-)

Anyway, Feynman did take the trouble to go to Stockholm and receive his share of the prize reluctantly; but like that Carpenter and the Walrus of Alice, he bought a big beach home with the prize money. Rather honest of him not to wear fig leaves about it...I mean he didn't give it away for charities like instituting a Research Institute in his name.

Maugham, the cynic, says in his Moon and Sixpence, that the stockbroker-turned-painter's ditched wife was so very eager to pardon her hubby in his deathbed that she couldn't wait...rather. Similarly I was so very eager to institute a Gold Medal in the name of my Guide SDM at KGP with the money I would get from the Silver Jubilee Research Award that I was even tempted to apply once, till my wise wife advised me against it...

Last Laugh

Like Feynman, I have already gotten my Prize...Blogspot's (mythical) Stats tell me that I have so far raised 32,228 (thirty two thousand two hundred twenty eight only) smiles in a mere three years at the rate of one smile on the average per 'page-view'...



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