Friday, April 6, 2012

Lazy Boys

====================================================================

This is a sequel to the blog: 'In Praise of Laziness' posted long long ago:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2009/10/in-praise-of-laziness.html

Any praise of laziness is as sweet
to Bengalis as honey is to sloth bears. It is said that our bear-babu would climb up the treetop from which a full and ripe hive is hanging and starts tearing it apart. The busy bees jealously guarding their winter stock of food would get mad and try and sting the grizzly invader all over but as you know they succeed only in tickling him...much like my Guru SDM trying to administer a 'public snubbing' to his veteran Research Scholars.

So, Shyamal was so pleased with that blog that he forwarded it to his friendly editor of Now & Again of The Statesman which, bearing a Bengali hallmark, immediately published it.

The above story of the sloth bear, who, after feasting on the rich honey climbs down, saunters to the nearest pool, washes himself thoroughly, gets up drowsily, and sinks on the sand into blissful oblivion for two days and nights, proves one thing:

It is the story of civilization itself...the food-hunter turning food-gatherer.

Everyone knows that civilization started in the river valleys of Nile, Tigris, Euphrates...and Ganges in the undivided Bengal where it divides itself into a million streams forming deltas (and epsilons).

One fine day our head-hunting Ancestor in Bengal (AB) found a few grains of rice sticking to his body and shook himself thoroughly before picking up his ax and bow and arrows (Bows were later on manufactured in Bowbazaar). And when he returned three months later, he found rice TREES which bore millions of grains of rice...the delta was so fertile...even in the stark deserts of Israel, they multiply hundredfold:

"Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty"....Matthew 13

And AB picked a bowlful of rice grains and gave them to his wife saying:

"Stud them in your flower-garland that I gifted you last birthday"

And his wife scolded her hubby:

"chup kore thaak...eyi chaul ta niye maacher biryani banaabo"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBLxT9mvfng

That's it! Our hirsute ancestor stopped hunting then on and started composing lyrics. This is the reason why IIT KGP (situated in W. B.) happens to be the only IIT to start a Department of Agricultural & Food (ummm!) Engg incorporating Aquaculture...big name for maacher bazaar:

http://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/20740870.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.panoramio.com/photo/20740870&h=1536&w=2048&sz=634&tbnid=17eHiTDwZy4G4M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=120&zoom=1&docid=xWbFB7VYtkcCfM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1TV_T6GLBeaSiAf89eCnBA&ved=0CDgQ9QEwBA&dur=2513

And started speaking rich Bengali then on. He knew that it is futile to give genders to lifeless objects, like the Hindi-speaking warrior-Aryan race. Tyagi told me the absurdity of Hindi grammar...'mooch' is feminine (since it is small) while 'sthun' is masculine (since it used to be pretty big before the size zero caught on).

In our civilized Bengli language we say: "Ramu khaachhe; Sita wu khacche"...while in Hindi I am told they have to say: "Ramu khata hai; lekin Sita khati hai"

In this respect Bengali is akin to the other most civilized language by name English that has conquered the whole world, where they say: "Ramu is eating; Sita too is eating (grubbing)"

I now know why Rommel lost the El Alamein battle to Monty...he had to send orders in writing to his officers on the field in German...also Reports to the Fuhrer. And if he makes a mistake in gender, of say Wehrmacht (which is feminine), he will get the boot. Also, he had to capitalize ALL nouns; and shunt his verbs to the end of sentences. All this eats up valuable battle time. While Monty has only to roar: "Kill the buggers!"

There is of course one exception in English: While 'you', 'he', 'she' and 'it' are spelt with small letters, 'I' happens to be capitalized...awkwardly...this is because, if 'I' were to be decapitated (I mean, not capitalized), and simply spelt small as 'i', it would be imaginary ...understand?

Nowadays, however, Supratim is trying hard not to capitalize his 'I's...but simply write: 'i'...he thinks I take it as a symptom of egolessness (what a word!).

But I am not fooled...he is just too lazy nowadays to waste energy...so he doesn't like to press the Shift key down and keep it pressed...he has other more pressing duties.

Any guess which part of India produced our Supratim?

You are right...Paschim Bango!

Listen to what he said NINE months ago:

"Power chairs brought to mind a favourite chair i had for nearly 7 years while i was in canada. In north america there is a famous brand called laz(ee)boy which sells for hundreds and sometimes even thousands of dollars. My second hand sofa chair bought in mint condition for $20 could beat any lazboy hands down. It was fabulously comfortable and the only possession that was very difficult to part with when i returned to india."

gps: Didn't I tell you!!!



=====================================================================

No comments: