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The next warning to me was that I can't go anywhere near smoke for a month after my eye-surgery.
That, I thought was a breeze.
It is 33 years since I quit smoking. Those were the halcyon days in the Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP. And I used to quietly sit on the lawn bench of a winter evening and watch the dying embers of the umpteenth butt I tossed on the grass. The black tar had already gone into the lungs and lined them well and good. And the butt emitted a long wisp of snaky smoke that was white at first and pale blue in its last gasp...the Tyndall Blue.
It was when I reached Bengal in 1965 that I first saw industrial chimneys belching smoke. They were dotting the landscape when I traveled from KGP to Cal by tardy Locals. Then came the proletarian revolution and the chimneys ceased their emissions one by one. Till the last sigh of the boor. Then on the idle chimneys gathered beauteous moss till they were taken apart brick by brick for better uses. Bengal had a premonition of pollution awareness and doesn't have to worry about its carbon footprints.
There is good in everything as the Bard put it long ago.
Those were the years when Prof BCB used to drive us in his Fiat Millicento for periodic winter picnics in what is now famous as Jangalmahal. And he pointed to us that wherever we saw a clump of trees on a high ground with smoke coming up it is a sign of a tiny hamlet.
Talking of Bengal I cherished the adjective 'sultry' that was applied to one of her dusky beauties. And wondered if 'smoky' could as well be a worthwhile epithet. Just now I consulted my online Webster that is always open in a separate window and found three and only three examples cited for 'smoky':
1. Her dress was a smoky blue
2. Her smoky voice drew me in
3. She gave him a smoky look
Webster has traveled a long way...my 1965 print edition cites 6 sentences with 'smoky' none of which has any feminine charm.
Talking of smoke, I recalled the black and white wisps of smoke emitted by the Papal Conclave to denote an indecisive or decisive vote. Google tells me that they burn ballots under a specially erected chimney and add to them Potassium Perchlorate for black emissions and Potassium Chlorate for white.
Some Papal Chemistry there!
I guess we should erect similar chimneys in our Lok Sabha that emit black smoke when our MPs insult each other verbally and white when they come to blows...I leaked out the chemistry above.
I was wondering why in our Hindu marriages the bride and groom are subjected to so much smoke emitted by the homams (sacrificial fires). It is indeed an ordeal by smoke if not fire. The samidhas (firewood) are chosen to smoke the most. I guess it is a warning of things to come.
This thought led me to my own marriage all of 34 years ago and all that it entailed...fond reveries of an old man at sea.
And suddenly with a thud I realized that my wife's first death anniversary is due in a fortnight.
And it meant four-hour homams for four days right in our drawing room...
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That, I thought was a breeze.
It is 33 years since I quit smoking. Those were the halcyon days in the Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP. And I used to quietly sit on the lawn bench of a winter evening and watch the dying embers of the umpteenth butt I tossed on the grass. The black tar had already gone into the lungs and lined them well and good. And the butt emitted a long wisp of snaky smoke that was white at first and pale blue in its last gasp...the Tyndall Blue.
It was when I reached Bengal in 1965 that I first saw industrial chimneys belching smoke. They were dotting the landscape when I traveled from KGP to Cal by tardy Locals. Then came the proletarian revolution and the chimneys ceased their emissions one by one. Till the last sigh of the boor. Then on the idle chimneys gathered beauteous moss till they were taken apart brick by brick for better uses. Bengal had a premonition of pollution awareness and doesn't have to worry about its carbon footprints.
There is good in everything as the Bard put it long ago.
Those were the years when Prof BCB used to drive us in his Fiat Millicento for periodic winter picnics in what is now famous as Jangalmahal. And he pointed to us that wherever we saw a clump of trees on a high ground with smoke coming up it is a sign of a tiny hamlet.
Talking of Bengal I cherished the adjective 'sultry' that was applied to one of her dusky beauties. And wondered if 'smoky' could as well be a worthwhile epithet. Just now I consulted my online Webster that is always open in a separate window and found three and only three examples cited for 'smoky':
1. Her dress was a smoky blue
2. Her smoky voice drew me in
3. She gave him a smoky look
Webster has traveled a long way...my 1965 print edition cites 6 sentences with 'smoky' none of which has any feminine charm.
Talking of smoke, I recalled the black and white wisps of smoke emitted by the Papal Conclave to denote an indecisive or decisive vote. Google tells me that they burn ballots under a specially erected chimney and add to them Potassium Perchlorate for black emissions and Potassium Chlorate for white.
Some Papal Chemistry there!
I guess we should erect similar chimneys in our Lok Sabha that emit black smoke when our MPs insult each other verbally and white when they come to blows...I leaked out the chemistry above.
I was wondering why in our Hindu marriages the bride and groom are subjected to so much smoke emitted by the homams (sacrificial fires). It is indeed an ordeal by smoke if not fire. The samidhas (firewood) are chosen to smoke the most. I guess it is a warning of things to come.
This thought led me to my own marriage all of 34 years ago and all that it entailed...fond reveries of an old man at sea.
And suddenly with a thud I realized that my wife's first death anniversary is due in a fortnight.
And it meant four-hour homams for four days right in our drawing room...
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