Sab-bath

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God created everything in six days;

"And on the seventh day god ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made"

.......Genesis 2.2; King James Version.

So, one of the Ten Commandments in all Abrahamic Religions is to observe the seventh day of every week as Sabbath by desisting from their daily mundane labor, and by praying, fasting and engaging in such spiritual practices.

Jews observe Saturday as their Sabbath. One of the best whodunits I ever read is: 'Saturday the rabbi went hungry'. The puritanical zeal with which they observe it was commented upon by Feynman in the chapter: "Is electricity fire?":

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"...They (the young rabbis) said, 'Well, for instance, is electricity fire?'

'No,' I said, 'but......what is the problem?'

They said, 'In the Talmud it says you're not supposed to make fire on a Saturday, so our question is, can we use electrical things on Saturdays?'

I was shocked.....

And then one day--I guess it was a Saturday---I want to go up in the elevator, and here is a guy standing near the elevator. The elevator comes, I go in, and he goes in with me. I say, 'Which floor?' and my hand's ready to push one of the buttons.

'No, no!,' he says, 'I'm supposed to push the button for you.'

'What?'

'Yes! The boys here can't push the buttons on Saturday, so I have to do it for them You see, I'm not Jewish, so it's alright for me to push the buttons for them. I stand near the elevator, and they tell me what floor, and I push the button for them.'...."

Well, Feynman may have been Jewish or not, but he was as easy-going on religious practices as I. For instance, 'Torah required a slave who had worked for six years to go free in the seventh year' (wiki). So, he was entitled to his sabbatical leave and tried to use it as a pretext to decline Caltech's offer. But they were cleverer and told him to go take his sabbatical year in Brazil before even he joined them...which he did with relish.

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Christians observe Sunday as their Sabbath. Listen to how it was two centuries ago in Boston when our Autocrat was a kid:

"The Puritan 'Sabbath,' as everybody knows, began at 'sundown' on Saturday evening. To such observance of it I was born and bred. As the large, round disk of the day declined, a stillness, a solemnity, a somewhat melancholy hush came over us all. It was time for work to cease, and for playthings to be put away. The world of active life passed into the shadow of an eclipse, not to emerge until the sun should sink again beneath the horizon.

It was in this stillness of the world without and of the soul within that the pulsating lullaby of the evening crickets used to make itself most distinctly heard,---so that I well remember I used to think that the purring of these little creatures, which mingled with the batrachian hymns from the neighboring swamp, was peculiar to Saturday evenings...."

Well, that is why no one except a crazy chap like me reads the Autocrat...I mean, using 'batrachian hymns' for the sing-song mating calls of the lecherous KGP Tech Market frogs!!!

And that is why Mark Twain spoke his infamous words at an Atlantic Dinner:

"Twain proceeded to characterize Emerson as 'seedy little bit of a chap,' Holmes 'as fat as a balloon,' and Longfellow as having the physical build of a 'prize fighter'. Smith concludes his lengthy analysis of the dinner with the suggestion that the 'speech expressed a "deep-seated conflict" on Twain's part regarding the literary Brahmins of the New England'...":

http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2008-11/twain_toast.html

The simpler explanation is of course that he was as tight as Pickwick's pants.

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Muslim's have their 'juma', the special noon prayers on Fridays when every male is expected to stop whatever business he is transacting and join the congregational prayers when he hears the 'aazan';...and they have this wonderful Ramzan month.

Most other religions have their weekly sabbath....except Hindus.

Good Hindus are never expected to 'work' any day of the week, month, year...

"Karmanyakarma yah pashyedakarmanicha karma yah
Sa buddhiman manushyeshu sa yuktah krstnakarmakrit"

.........................................................Gita: 4-18

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So, being a good Hindu, I shirked 'working' tonight....just 'copy-pasting'.

Here is a mail I received yesterday:

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Subject: Voice from the past
Sender: Dr S

Dear GP:

I recently ran into a bunch of IIT alumnus in Washington when I was a guest speaker at a forum on International Infrastructure Finance. Thereafter, I decided to surf and look up some of our IIT Kgp colleagues. After I left IIT Kharagpur in 1967, I stayed with Physics until 1972. Shortly after my Ph.D. work, I migrated away to delving into international energy issues for about 10 years.

In 1984, I founded CORE International as an international management consulting firm and further drifted to business and finance even going on to the Wharton Business School for an AMP and have been very busy advising donors, corporations, and governments worldwide. It has been quite a journey for the last 30 plus years. I have worked in over 90 countries and have no plans to quit. Essentially, I have devoted my life to developing countries in their plight for basic services such as water, healthcare, and electricity.

I am married to an American and we have one son who is now 23. He just graduated from the Villanova University Business School and is now a Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch/Bank of America.

Hope, all is well with you. Would love to hear from you.

All the best

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Here is my reply:

Dear S:

You certainly DID surprise me by your voice from the past. And what a voice!

Nice to hear that you have had a fruitful career doing good where it is needed most. And you have a cute family.

As for myself, your career and mine are precise opposites or, rather, complements. Like hurricane and the hurricane-lantern.

I have stayed put like a rock at IIT KGP for all of forty years holding the Tower up on my shoulders and retired as a Professor at the age of 62. I haven't set my foot on foreign soil. Indeed I don't have a passport and and don't intend to.

I got married at the rather late age of 36 and got a son pronto. He did his M Sc in Industrial Chemistry at IIT KGP and left chemistry as soon as he passed. And joined a software firm in Hyderabad seven years ago. He is now a Project Manager in Thomson-Reuters here. He is married to a lovely girl of our own sub-caste and they have a pretty daughter (2.2 years).

After retirement in 2005 I duly left Physics...both of us have done well enough...Physics has learned to live without me and vice versa.

Myself, my wife, our son, his wife, and their daughter, all of us stay together in a 3BHK apartment here in Hyderabad. My son is unlike me and has traveled all over the US and Europe on short business trips.

My ex-students spread all over the world insist I blog a short fun piece everyday for their daily fix of entertainment. So, I now have about a thousand pieces in my blogspot...some harmless fun.

When are you visiting India next? Welcome to this historic city of Nawabs and Nizams.

Love

gps

G.P.Sastry
http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/

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Here is his rejoinder:

Hi GP:

Great to hear back from you. Thank you very much for sending your blog. I remember CL Roy, Chitnis, and S. Dutta Majumdar very well. Old memories. I enjoyed your blog; it is a very good thing that you are doing; nice way to share wonderful memories.

I have been to India many times and during 2004-2008, I ran a $5 million program in India for capacity building of the electricity service providers in India in partnership with 12 Indian institutions including IIT KGP and IIT, Kanpur. I was also invited to write a piece on rural electrification in the India Infrastructure Report with Prof. PK of IIT, Kanpur. The gentleman from IIT Kharagpur who signed the grant that we provided for training of utilities in India was a Professor there. Enclosed is a picture of that signing with IIT, KGP. I am in the middle of the picture.

Also enclosed is a picture of my family here. Let us keep in touch and I will certainly visit you when I come to India next.

Take care and all the best.

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Good Night!

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