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Yawning Gap.
What a nice bodymetaphor that I missed listing:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/02/bodymetaphors.html
My Father was a devotee of Lord Raam...he would go into tearful ecstasy when he used to narrate to me his version of its various episodes.
And he said that Hanuman, though easily the most powerful, was never overtly aware of his powers or display them unasked...unlike some professors at IIT KGP of my generation who were the precise opposites ;-)
And Father used to say that Hanuman, single-handedly, could slay Raavan and fetch Sita back...on the other hand he merely set fire to Ceylon.
And that when the South-bound Search Party arrived on the beaches of the Indian Ocean, everyone felt that it was such a Yawning Gap between India and Ceylon that it can't be bridged...no way.
And like everyone, Hanuman felt defeated and was sitting glum on a boulder.
And then Jambavan remembers Hanuman's modesty and walks over to him and starts pumping him up sky-high about his unique Ashta Siddhis.
And now Father would take my viva on Amara Kosham which he made me memorize:
And would ask me to get up and recite the shlok that describes the eightfold super-powers. And I would fold my arms and GO:
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Yawning Gap.
What a nice bodymetaphor that I missed listing:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/02/bodymetaphors.html
My Father was a devotee of Lord Raam...he would go into tearful ecstasy when he used to narrate to me his version of its various episodes.
And he said that Hanuman, though easily the most powerful, was never overtly aware of his powers or display them unasked...unlike some professors at IIT KGP of my generation who were the precise opposites ;-)
And Father used to say that Hanuman, single-handedly, could slay Raavan and fetch Sita back...on the other hand he merely set fire to Ceylon.
And that when the South-bound Search Party arrived on the beaches of the Indian Ocean, everyone felt that it was such a Yawning Gap between India and Ceylon that it can't be bridged...no way.
And like everyone, Hanuman felt defeated and was sitting glum on a boulder.
And then Jambavan remembers Hanuman's modesty and walks over to him and starts pumping him up sky-high about his unique Ashta Siddhis.
And now Father would take my viva on Amara Kosham which he made me memorize:
And would ask me to get up and recite the shlok that describes the eightfold super-powers. And I would fold my arms and GO:
Anima mahima chaiva garima laghima tatha
Praaptih praakamyam ishatvam vashitvam cha ashta siddhayah
In plain English this is what they are (wiki):
- Aṇimā: reducing one's body even to the size of an atom
- Mahima: expanding one's body to an infinitely large size
- Garima: becoming infinitely heavy
- Laghima: becoming almost weightless
- Prāpti: having unrestricted access to all places
- Prākāmya: realizing whatever one desires
- Iṣṭva: possessing absolute lordship
- Vaśtva: the power to subjugate all
And then Hanuman gets up and the rest, as Raambhakts say, is History...for example go see the Raam Sethu if you don't believe us.
While crossing this Yawning Gap of an Ocean, Hanuman met with another Yawning Gap in the form of a Demoness (I forget her name...it could be Lankhini, or was it Shinkhini...I have to ask my Father if he does that trick of Hamlet's Father one of these days).
Whatever her name, she opens her BIG mouth not to yawn but to devour Hanuman. Of course, since he knew Anima, Hanuman dwindles himself to the size of a flea and enters her Yawning Gap; and then uses his Mahima to expand inside till Lankhini (or Shinkhini) develops such a bloated tummy that she blows up like that Aesop's Frog:
While looking up Yawn in the Free Online Dictionary, I expanded my vocabulary by two cute words:
Oscitancy: Just a yawn
Pandiculation: Yawning and Stretching
How very evocative of KGP Class Rooms!
Anyway, what I wanted to talk about was the Yawning Gap between the KV Central School Curriculum of Class X and the IIT JEE syllabus 15 years ago while I was vainly trying to coach my son.
Science expands into Physics and Chemistry.
The one section in Physics yawns into at least two volumes of Resnick & Halliday, plus Brilliant plus Fitjee plus what not.
And the section on Chemistry bloats into Physical, Inorganic, Organic and perhaps Atomic plus Sarin plus D P Agarwal plus whatever.
The less said about Math the better. No wonder very few of the KV IIT KGP cross the Yawning Gap of an Indian Ocean.
Not so the Hyderabadi kids. They are like Abhimanyus...their Pappas read aloud to their yawning wives the Periodic Table from the first trimester after Gravindex. So, they cross IIT JEE like an army of Hanumans. But like Abhimanyus they aren't taught the way back to India from the Land of the Golden Sun... not Jamai-ka but Amari-ka.
Listen to a Secunderabadi Old Parent's complaint:
"...It is really nice for both of you to live in the company of grand
child, son and his wife. It is a rare gift from God now-a-days when every
young man is running abroad for earning dollars and driving cars,
forgetting the plight of his parents. Both of our daughters are living
abroad and perhaps we cannot blame them.
My elder daughter has two children, one daughter of ten and a boy
of one and a half. The younger one has two dogs, no issue. They are very
much occupied with the upkeep of the canine family. That's it. I am sure
you are having a nice time with your grand daughter. May God bless her!..."
Of course I don't agree with him...it is all like Dilli ka Laddu...since another parent says: "Green Card is Passport to Heaven"...the grass is always greener on the other side of the Yawning Gap...the streets of Lanka, my Father used to boast, were paved with gold...and, lying down on the camp cot under the starlit Muthukur sky, his voice seemed choked with gold.
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Fractional Distillates - 7
I had forgotten to talk about Fractional Distillates - 7, which is Refinery Gases (Bottled).
The right equivalent of this in the world of readers is of course those few who are addicted to the gpsblogspot...
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