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I guess there is some truth in recessive genes or whatever.
Father had what he referred to fondly as his 'nail box'. It was a deal-wood box of say 9" x 4" x 3". The box itself was a terror to me...it had sharp groovy edges.
It had several types and sizes of rusting iron nails. Thinnest ones were called 'photo nails'...they were used to fix pictures of gods cut out from calenders into a frame of wood. And shoe-nails, somewhat like the drawing pins but very strong with tapering trapezoidal edges. And real funky nails that needed a poker of sorts. And cutting pliers and a weird hammer driven loosely into a tapering rod of raw wood. The hammer was double-edged...the butt end to drive nails into walls and the split curvy end to tweak them out. Do & Undo. And several screws and screwdrivers.
He never went to a cobbler to fix his chappals. Nor did he ever need a hammersmith.
One day when I was about 8, he was driving one of his rusted nails into the wall and the nail bent itself into a V-figure. And Father, standing on his stool, passed on the bent nail to me along with his hammer and asked me to straighten the nail out and pass it on to him. That was the last time he asked me to do any such thing...I hit my thumb with the massive hammer whose head flew up like a jackrabbit and I bled like a squeezed tomatino.
To this day, I am a clone of Uncle Podger when it comes to nails or screws or bottle caps or razors or blades or glasses of sundry sorts.
For more than a decade, I have been on liquid enzymes after every meal. Aristozyme was what my doctor prescribed. And it came in a lovely wine-shaped-bottle. And it was cheap @ Rs 45. It had what it flaunted as Pineapple Flavor. Don't get misled...like Ford's T-model, it came only in one flavor...pineapple. I loved its taste and it worked. But its cap had a screw with a sharp serrated underling that is supposed to crack itself out when turned...but it never did...it got stuck or turned and turned and turned like the Wheel of Karma. So I had to ask my wife to break its seal. And she would go into her kitchen and take a knife and saw it out...God!
But after she passed away I was too shy to ask my D-i-L for help. But fortunately it went out of market for periodic reasons everyone knows. And I asked my Medical Shop Vendor if he had any equivalent in the market. And he brought forth a bottle that called itself 'Lupizyme'. And said it comes in five or more flavors. I told him I didn't care for variety in flavors, but does its cap unscrew without a knife and sword? He gave a demo with his hand...just turned it lightly and it opened phut. I told him to pack half a dozen bottles of the stuff and hand me the bill. And discovered each bottle cost Rs 80! But I was game for it...cuts and bruises are not worth a few pension rupees.
But my son is an expert, like his mom, in such stuff. He has hands of magic. Like his granpa.
When I went to KGP and made friends with NP, I discovered he had a 'basement workshop' in his house like those Americans. He had his degrees in ME and never got anything less than 95% in Workshop Practice...I would have failed summarily.
And his workshop had full-fledged carpentry-cum-machinery-cum-electronics tools and kits...drills both power and hand driven, a library of hundred types of screws, hammers and tongs, pliers of the nose and ear variety, quick and quicker-fixes, glues, grommets, box-cutters, soldering irons, saws for wood, steel and glass, and a hundred other things I don't know the names of.
And he loves his workshop...like I do my wordshop nowadays. We get our sublime peace there. They are our shrines of meditation and medication.
When my son started going to St Agnes School at KGP in the early 1980s, his teachers used to give him lots of homework I don't know why...we never had any. And the only table we had in our home was the dining table which was too high for the poor chap; and he used to squat on the floor and keep his homework in front of him on the floor and bend and break his back.
NP saw his travails once and went home and designed, fabricated and gifted him a lovely rugged 'homework table', and my son grew so fond of it that he was using it in his IIT years too.
And then for a while it turned itself into a Puja Table on which sat an assortment of gods and goddesses.
And later, I was using it as my laptop table.
Till Ishani grew up into her schooling and homework.
And she loved the table so much that I graciously parted with it.
It is a great pleasure for me nowadays to watch her at it...see pic above...the combo look so cutely made for each other...
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I guess there is some truth in recessive genes or whatever.
Father had what he referred to fondly as his 'nail box'. It was a deal-wood box of say 9" x 4" x 3". The box itself was a terror to me...it had sharp groovy edges.
It had several types and sizes of rusting iron nails. Thinnest ones were called 'photo nails'...they were used to fix pictures of gods cut out from calenders into a frame of wood. And shoe-nails, somewhat like the drawing pins but very strong with tapering trapezoidal edges. And real funky nails that needed a poker of sorts. And cutting pliers and a weird hammer driven loosely into a tapering rod of raw wood. The hammer was double-edged...the butt end to drive nails into walls and the split curvy end to tweak them out. Do & Undo. And several screws and screwdrivers.
He never went to a cobbler to fix his chappals. Nor did he ever need a hammersmith.
One day when I was about 8, he was driving one of his rusted nails into the wall and the nail bent itself into a V-figure. And Father, standing on his stool, passed on the bent nail to me along with his hammer and asked me to straighten the nail out and pass it on to him. That was the last time he asked me to do any such thing...I hit my thumb with the massive hammer whose head flew up like a jackrabbit and I bled like a squeezed tomatino.
To this day, I am a clone of Uncle Podger when it comes to nails or screws or bottle caps or razors or blades or glasses of sundry sorts.
For more than a decade, I have been on liquid enzymes after every meal. Aristozyme was what my doctor prescribed. And it came in a lovely wine-shaped-bottle. And it was cheap @ Rs 45. It had what it flaunted as Pineapple Flavor. Don't get misled...like Ford's T-model, it came only in one flavor...pineapple. I loved its taste and it worked. But its cap had a screw with a sharp serrated underling that is supposed to crack itself out when turned...but it never did...it got stuck or turned and turned and turned like the Wheel of Karma. So I had to ask my wife to break its seal. And she would go into her kitchen and take a knife and saw it out...God!
But after she passed away I was too shy to ask my D-i-L for help. But fortunately it went out of market for periodic reasons everyone knows. And I asked my Medical Shop Vendor if he had any equivalent in the market. And he brought forth a bottle that called itself 'Lupizyme'. And said it comes in five or more flavors. I told him I didn't care for variety in flavors, but does its cap unscrew without a knife and sword? He gave a demo with his hand...just turned it lightly and it opened phut. I told him to pack half a dozen bottles of the stuff and hand me the bill. And discovered each bottle cost Rs 80! But I was game for it...cuts and bruises are not worth a few pension rupees.
But my son is an expert, like his mom, in such stuff. He has hands of magic. Like his granpa.
When I went to KGP and made friends with NP, I discovered he had a 'basement workshop' in his house like those Americans. He had his degrees in ME and never got anything less than 95% in Workshop Practice...I would have failed summarily.
And his workshop had full-fledged carpentry-cum-machinery-cum-electronics tools and kits...drills both power and hand driven, a library of hundred types of screws, hammers and tongs, pliers of the nose and ear variety, quick and quicker-fixes, glues, grommets, box-cutters, soldering irons, saws for wood, steel and glass, and a hundred other things I don't know the names of.
And he loves his workshop...like I do my wordshop nowadays. We get our sublime peace there. They are our shrines of meditation and medication.
When my son started going to St Agnes School at KGP in the early 1980s, his teachers used to give him lots of homework I don't know why...we never had any. And the only table we had in our home was the dining table which was too high for the poor chap; and he used to squat on the floor and keep his homework in front of him on the floor and bend and break his back.
NP saw his travails once and went home and designed, fabricated and gifted him a lovely rugged 'homework table', and my son grew so fond of it that he was using it in his IIT years too.
And then for a while it turned itself into a Puja Table on which sat an assortment of gods and goddesses.
And later, I was using it as my laptop table.
Till Ishani grew up into her schooling and homework.
And she loved the table so much that I graciously parted with it.
It is a great pleasure for me nowadays to watch her at it...see pic above...the combo look so cutely made for each other...
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