Unfair Images

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"The evil that men do lives after them

The good is oft interred with their bones"

........Shakespeare

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June 17, 2012

Preparations afoot for the proper consummation of the Tenth Day rituals of my wife's release from her mortal coils:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/06/foot-wear-4.html


The Chief Priest (Lion) came to me to finalize the menu. And he asked me what vegetables I would like to have:

"Potato...I love it and it is easily available throughout the year"

"No, sorry, potato is forbidden"

"Oh, ok...tomato...my wife loved it"

"No, sorry, tomato is forbidden"

"What is not forbidden then?"

 "Brinjal (egg plant), okra (lady's finger), banana, pumpkin, cucumber, arbi (colocasia), drumstick..."

"What is wrong with potato and tomato?"

"Potato, tomato, cabbage, cauliflower, capsicum, carrot etc are all Viswamitra Srishti"

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I could then guess that these vegetables supposedly created by, not Brahma, but Viswamitra in his Parallel Creation (in Trishanku's Heaven) are not native to South India but imported and transplanted and so are forbidden on religious occasions. 

It is a different matter that Coffee, an import from Arabia, flows like water in the Tenth Day Kitchen ;-)

I feel sorry for Viswamitra.

He is remembered by me for ditching Menaka who gave him the cutest baby, Shakuntala, and deserting both. But, Raamayana wouldn't have been there but for Vishwamitra...he taught Raama and Lakshmana all the mantras and tantras he knew and got Raama married to Sita. And then left abruptly never to appear again in Raamayana.

Whenever I hear of Dasaratha, I recall my Father's story how Dasaratha wore bangles and hid in his kitchen to escape the wrath of Parashuram who vowed to kill all kings.

And Raama, of course, evokes in me resentment at the timid way in which he killed Vaali, hiding behind a tree.

And Sage Durvasa is remembered for his bad temper but it was he that taught Kunti the mantra to beget sons of Gods, without which Mahabharat wouldn't be there. 

And of course every character of Mahabharat has his flip side...none perfect, including Krishna, who promised war to Draupadi before embarking on a Peace Mission to Hastinapur.

Yudhishtir, the near perfect, relates why each of his mountaineer companions fell by the wayside one by miserable one: 

Draupadi, for her partiality to Arjun; Sahadev for pride in his wisdom; Nakul for his narcissism; Arjun for his inability to live up to his vow to kill all Kauravas in one single day (they took 18 days); and Bhim for his bulimia.

Perhaps I have an unfair eye for the weaknesses of the Great.

But it is not different in the scientific world.

I first read about Berzelius in my College Chemistry:

"Berzelius rashly concluded that equal volumes of all gases at NTP have equal number of atoms"

And that 'rashly' stuck; and I never knew that he was regarded as one of the Fathers of Chemistry, along with Dalton, Lavoisier and Boyle.

And Avagadro walked away to immortality (Avagadro Number) by merely replacing 'atoms' with 'molecules' if my College Chemistry book is to be trusted.

And the name of Boyle raises in me his excursions into alchemy (it is actually the other way round...his chief preoccupation was with alchemy and excursions were into chemistry):

http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/boyle-reborn

And there are dozens of instances in which the deserving never got the Nobel, but the fortunate walked away with it...the leading example being Dicke vs Penzias & Wilson.

And so on and so forth...

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1995, IIT KGP, Qrs B-140

A young couple, Dr & Mrs JK walked into our Drawing Room, ringing the bell (there were no phones in youngsters' Qrs then...I was 52)

And JK introduced himself as a new faculty in the ECE Dept. Mrs JK told us that her brother, Hanumanta Rao, insisted that they meet gps as soon as they settled at KGP. And she said Hanu was a student of B.Sc (Hons) at KGP and attended my classes in 1970. And she asked me if I remembered him after all those 25 years. Of course I did. He was the only Hanu in all those 25 years at KGP.

She said Hanu rose to a high position in the Ministry at Delhi as Chief Scientific Officer in Hydrology.

And we became family friends because Mrs JK came to be regarded by my wife as her own daughter.

They went back to Delhi during the next Summer Vacation and returned and visited us. And this is how Mrs JK described her talk with Hanu:

"My brother Hanu was glad we met you; and asked me if the gps I said we met is a chain smoker since he used to smoke one before and one after each lecture class. And I said, no, he never smoked during our long visits to their Qrs. And then he asked if this gps is lean and thin and a born bachelor. I said no, he is of average build and is married, with a wonderful wife and a cute school-going kid. And then Hanu said: 'No, you must have met the wrong gps...not the one I learned my EM from'. Were you a chain smoker?"

"Hmm!"

"Were you lean and thin?"

"Hmm!!!"

"Were you a born bachelor?"

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

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