Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Dead Giveaways

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In the Book of Judges, chapter 12, after the inhabitants of Gilead inflicted a military defeat upon the tribe of Ephraim (around 13701070 BC), the surviving Ephraimites tried to cross the Jordan River back into their home territory and the Gileadites secured the river's fords to stop them. In order to identify and kill these refugees, the Gileadites put each refugee to a simple test:

"Gilead then cut Ephraim off from the fords of the Jordan, and whenever Ephraimite fugitives said, 'Let me cross,' the men of Gilead would ask, 'Are you an Ephraimite?' If he said, 'No,' they then said, 'Very well, say "Shibboleth" (שיבולת).' If anyone said, "Sibboleth" (סיבולת), because he could not pronounce it, then they would seize him and kill him by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell on this occasion."

....wiki


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I don't have to be Professor Higgins to tell that our President hails from Bengal the moment he opens his mouth to utter his English. Nor when a certain lady politico opens her mouth (some mouth!)...except that I am scared she will put me behind bars under Sec, 66 A of IT Act (revised).

If a man says 'eess' for 'eesh', he is from the wrong side of Bengal. If he says 'pleace' for 'police' and 'satation' for 'station' he is from the Land of Five Rivers. If he says 'iscrew' for 'screw' he is from the Gangetic plains. If anyone says 'oh...il' for 'oil' he is from the Land of God and Backwaters. And if he says 'vaakay' for 'ok' he is from the land of River Kaveri. And if he reads out his English alphabet as 'A B C D E F G Hhech! I J K...' he is from the land undergoing the pangs of partition. And so on...

In the Chandogyopanishad there is this casteist story: The boy Satyakama wants to learn the vedas and approaches Sage Gautama. Gautama is impressed by the looks and earnestness of the boy and asks him if he is a brahmin...for, vedas are of the brahmins, by the brahmins and for the brahmins...like IIT Kanpur was once boasting that it was of her faculty, by her faculty and for her faculty. 

Satyakama goes home and asks his mom, Jabala, if he is a brahmin. And she says that she can't tell for sure since she was working as a maid in several houses and her masters exploited her...there were then no stringent laws against sexual harassment in workplaces.

Satyakama returns to Gautama and narrates what his mom told him. And Gautama is pleased and accepts the boy as his pupil, saying that only a brahmin by birth can speak such unpalatable truths...like gps.

Parashuram was angry with kshatriyas since King Kartavirya slays his brahmin father Jamadagni. And vows to rid the world of all kshatriyas...much like our poster boy wants to rid India, that is, Bharat, of the Congress Party. 

And goes forth all of 21 times killing whichever king he finds. When he was entering Ayodhya in his killing spree, word gets out to its King Dasarath who, according to my Father, wears his third wife's sari and bangles and hides in her kitchen.

Dasarath's eldest son, Raam, takes his revenge on Parashuram by shaking his hands and sucking all his powers thereby...some intricate hydraulics involved there. Parashuram then recognizes Raam as the incarnation of Vishnu and retires into the forests. But, though he loses his prowess, he doesn't lose his knowledge...like retired professors of IIT KGP.

Karn, the son of Kunti, wants to become Parashuram's pupil to gain all his knowledge of shastras (like our Bofors guns) and astras (like our Agni misslies). But there is this catch that, though enervated, Parashuram bears his grudge against all kshatriyas and takes only brahmins as his pupils.

So Karn wears a dhoti and choti and approaches Parashuram pretending he is a brahmin. Parashuram is pleased and accepts Karn as his doctoral student...much like the Research Labs of the Phy Dept at AU in the 1960s were cleanly divided into the Brahmin wing and the Nonbrahmin wing.   

One noon after lunch Parashuram feels sleepy and Karn offers his right thigh as the pillow to his master. And when Parashuram was fast asleep, a dung beetle of the vicious sort burrows into the said thigh of Karn, and blood oozes out. But Karn doesn't want to disturb the slumber of his master and lets the beetle do its work. 

After a while Parashuram wakes up and sees all that blood and gore and comes to know what happened. And at once realizes that he has been cheated...no brahmin can have that much physical forbearance. And comes to know that Karn is a kshatriya and curses him that all the hi-tech weaponry he  acquired would fail him when the crunch comes.

I know...I am a brahmin by birth (though I don't wear choti and sacred thread)...and I can't sleep even if a single mosquito buzzes in my vicinity...I have to get up and change the All-Out refill.

There was this great sculptor in Karnataka, Jakkanna, who built several famous temples which stand even today despite the supreme efforts of our Archeology Dept. He leaves his home when his wife was pregnant and never returns...absorbed in his profession. 

One day, just before the consecration of the famous temple at Beluru (not the Howrah one), a lad appears and challenges in public that the main idol sculpted by Jakkanna has a terrible flaw and the installation should be stalled. Upon which Jakkanna is inflamed and bets that he would cut his right hand if the lad could show him the fault. Upon which the lad approaches the idol and subjects it to the 'percussion test' much like my MD uncle used to do to my chest.

And shows that the navel of the idol sounds hollow...and Jakkanna takes his hammer and hits the navel...and a tiny frog...'freuline' in my friend NP's lingo...falls out. And Jakkanna is scandalized and embraces the lad and cuts his (Jakkanna's) right hand. 

And Jakkanna's wife materializes mysteriously and tells her hubby that the lad is none else but his son...some genes there...named Dankanna. And the gods clap their hands and restore Jakkanna's right hand...and the father-son duo...like Tony Weller and Sam Weller...resume their professions.

Some six months back a lad of forty, K, was visiting us kindly for a couple of hours...he does it whenever he is in Hyderabad...a friendly soul. This chap is the only son of his wealthy parents who were egging him on to marry since he is superbly settled in life. But he had been demurring and asking his parents to wait and wait and wait...till they lost all hopes of performing a grand wedding ceremony of their handsome, brilliant and well-to-do son.

As he was sitting on our sofa and fiddling and playing with the toys and dolls of Ishani, I showed him Ishani's latest and cutest doll and called it Mickey Mouse.

And the chap at once corrected me:

"No, Uncle...it is not Mickey Mouse...it is Minnie Mouse!"

This, sort of, stunned me and I sensed something wrong in an unmarried lad knowing a thing called Minnie Mouse which I myself never knew...and I was married for 33 years before I lost my wife...and I had got my son married and saw him as a father of a lovely kid.

A few months later, I got to know that the chap had recently got married in secret to an 'unsuitable girl' and has a one-year-old infant son....  


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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Sir,

May be I am too dumb to understand it but still I am not able to see the correlation between knowing the difference between Mickey and Minnie and having a secret marriage (probably due to a love affair)! If possible, will you please explain it to me?

with best regards

G P Sastry (gps1943@yahoo.com) said...

I meant to say that since the chap didn't have any sisters or brothers with kids, and was living alone, he couldn't have had the chance to acquire intimate knowledge of toys of today's kids.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the explanation sir!
I am convinced now, that I am really dumb!