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My first visit to Hyderabad was in May 1975. I was escorting my sister, V, a good decade younger to me, from IIT KGP. It was also her first visit to Hyderabad.
By then I already had a decade of so-called teaching experience at IIT KGP. And had just acquired my hard-earned Ph D working under the supervision of a wacky genius called SDM...he spread his wackiness (but not genius) to his students liberally. I was a carefree bachelor with no hope of marriage anywhere on the event horizon.
It is a paltry truism that Life, as we know it, is weird. And to the livers, it is at times anarchy. When I was roaming around the rather empty streets of Hyderabad where man-driven squat rickshaws were the high-end mode of transport, I had then no idea that four decades later, I would be a blogging citizen of Hyderabad (the Telangana patriots call the likes of me 'settlers', and would love that we get duly unsettled). And that I would at last marry, beget a son, a daughter-in-law, and a little granddaughter and duly lose my wife. Had I known my lifeline, I would have viewed Hyderabad then a bit differently. My life for its first 60 years lay due northwards hugging the coastline of Bay of Bengal...from Muthukur to Nellore to Nidubrole to Vizagh and finally to Kharagpur.
More so with my sister, V. She had acquired an M Sc in Physics at Tirupati and was finishing her one-year PG Diploma in Physics at IIT KGP. Her more random lifeline was from Muthukur to Gudur to Tirupati to Kharagpur to Bapatla to Anand to Bangalore to Solapur to Nasik to Coimbatore to Gurgaon and finally to...hold your breath...Hyderabad as a 'settler' a couple of years after me. She got married, had two daughters, one now doing her Ph D in the US and the other shuttling between Bangalore and California. V and her hubby live at the other end of Hyderabad and we meet up once a year on the average!
After doing her M Sc in Tirupati, V wanted to be a Physics lecturer in a Govt College...teaching being in our blood...we are a family of teachers. But the Public Service Commission interviews were to take place after a good one year and so she was footloose then at our father's place in Gudur. So I convinced her to join me at IIT KGP and do a nicely-paid 1-year PG Diploma Course in Industrial Physics. And she arrived at KGP and we took Qrs C1-97 and started cooking and eating and going to work at the IIT for a year.
V was then a sensitive girl bordering on the inscrutable....she is now a veteran and much more scrutable.
I often used to ask her if she had any doubts in Physics that I could clarify to help her pass the tough IIT exams. She never had any. And I was dubious....everyone has doubts in physics, it is such a tough subject. And I was afraid that she was feeling too shy to ask and would flunk in her exams.
And then came the day when I had to finally carry the huge bag containing the five copies of typescripts of my Ph D thesis to the binder (present tense of bounder) for eventual submission. The evening was at 5.30 and I had fastened my bag to the carrier of my pushbike and was about to take off.
Suddenly V asked me to stop since she had a serious doubt in Solid State Physics for which the exam was due the next day. And I was delighted...at last! And she opened her note book and asked me how this equation comes from that and so and such. And my ego was bloating. After half an hour she said she was through and let me go.
A decade later, I was glibly narrating this incident in her presence to my other sisters (I have five more). V then laughed and let it out that her so-called doubts were lame excuses for keeping me back at home for half an hour. Apparently we were passing through an inauspicious Raahu Kaalam period and she wanted to detain me till the Raahu chap yielded. She was superstitious and knew I was not. And she was too shy to tell me about it lest I rebuke her...physics students believing in Raahu Kaalam and Ketu Nasham!!!
That was how she fooled me completely...
Women!
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By then I already had a decade of so-called teaching experience at IIT KGP. And had just acquired my hard-earned Ph D working under the supervision of a wacky genius called SDM...he spread his wackiness (but not genius) to his students liberally. I was a carefree bachelor with no hope of marriage anywhere on the event horizon.
It is a paltry truism that Life, as we know it, is weird. And to the livers, it is at times anarchy. When I was roaming around the rather empty streets of Hyderabad where man-driven squat rickshaws were the high-end mode of transport, I had then no idea that four decades later, I would be a blogging citizen of Hyderabad (the Telangana patriots call the likes of me 'settlers', and would love that we get duly unsettled). And that I would at last marry, beget a son, a daughter-in-law, and a little granddaughter and duly lose my wife. Had I known my lifeline, I would have viewed Hyderabad then a bit differently. My life for its first 60 years lay due northwards hugging the coastline of Bay of Bengal...from Muthukur to Nellore to Nidubrole to Vizagh and finally to Kharagpur.
More so with my sister, V. She had acquired an M Sc in Physics at Tirupati and was finishing her one-year PG Diploma in Physics at IIT KGP. Her more random lifeline was from Muthukur to Gudur to Tirupati to Kharagpur to Bapatla to Anand to Bangalore to Solapur to Nasik to Coimbatore to Gurgaon and finally to...hold your breath...Hyderabad as a 'settler' a couple of years after me. She got married, had two daughters, one now doing her Ph D in the US and the other shuttling between Bangalore and California. V and her hubby live at the other end of Hyderabad and we meet up once a year on the average!
After doing her M Sc in Tirupati, V wanted to be a Physics lecturer in a Govt College...teaching being in our blood...we are a family of teachers. But the Public Service Commission interviews were to take place after a good one year and so she was footloose then at our father's place in Gudur. So I convinced her to join me at IIT KGP and do a nicely-paid 1-year PG Diploma Course in Industrial Physics. And she arrived at KGP and we took Qrs C1-97 and started cooking and eating and going to work at the IIT for a year.
V was then a sensitive girl bordering on the inscrutable....she is now a veteran and much more scrutable.
I often used to ask her if she had any doubts in Physics that I could clarify to help her pass the tough IIT exams. She never had any. And I was dubious....everyone has doubts in physics, it is such a tough subject. And I was afraid that she was feeling too shy to ask and would flunk in her exams.
And then came the day when I had to finally carry the huge bag containing the five copies of typescripts of my Ph D thesis to the binder (present tense of bounder) for eventual submission. The evening was at 5.30 and I had fastened my bag to the carrier of my pushbike and was about to take off.
Suddenly V asked me to stop since she had a serious doubt in Solid State Physics for which the exam was due the next day. And I was delighted...at last! And she opened her note book and asked me how this equation comes from that and so and such. And my ego was bloating. After half an hour she said she was through and let me go.
A decade later, I was glibly narrating this incident in her presence to my other sisters (I have five more). V then laughed and let it out that her so-called doubts were lame excuses for keeping me back at home for half an hour. Apparently we were passing through an inauspicious Raahu Kaalam period and she wanted to detain me till the Raahu chap yielded. She was superstitious and knew I was not. And she was too shy to tell me about it lest I rebuke her...physics students believing in Raahu Kaalam and Ketu Nasham!!!
That was how she fooled me completely...
Women!
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