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Well, I was never a moth chasing stars, except maybe in my teens like everyone else. I have been a run-of-the-mill South Indian Brahmin boy passing through the trying times of the second half of the last century.
But if I had a hundred dollars every time I was told:
"I didn't expect this from you!"
in a reproachful tone, I would have been a millionaire by now. All of these failed expectations were from members of my super-size extended family...none from friends who grew up with me and knew me well.
I was out of my father's home by 13 and had been a visiting guest the next 6 decades. So it was natural that my family members didn't quite follow my world line from a student to a teacher to a married man to a father to a retiree to a depression patient to a grandfather to a widower.
Sorry for them...not my fault.
But there was one man who said:
"Professor Sastry! I didn't expect this from you!"
in a surprised but happy tone.
That was Prof K who was our Director for a whole decade.
A few months after he took over in his new post, he visited our Physics Department and expressed his unhappiness with the standard of its faculty in an open meeting...he was himself a renowned experimental physicist.
This of course got our goats and I decided to have as little contact with him as I could. Allergy. I was a Professor myself by then, and after his first Senate Meeting I decided to cut all subsequent meetings.
As I came to know soon enough by intuition, our then HoD met the Director to appraise him of what his colleagues were doing and told him GPS does nothing but bare minimum teaching...no 'serious' research, no Ph D guidance, no project funds, no visits abroad, no nothing. For, our HoD called me and told me that the new Director wanted to know what I was doing, from time to time ;)
This suited me well since I was just then collaborating with Edwin Taylor of MIT, and sent our Diro copies of a few of our exchanges. This apparently broke the ice and K got curious...he visited us and saw what MIT was doing then in the matter of Educational Physics and was pleased to write a few congratulatory lines to me. This naturally turned me into a soft admirer of K...it is a sign of ripeness in an administrator to overturn his first impressions.
So, as time went on, we got to know of each others' strong points but avoided one another scrupulously. I was happy that he changed the face of IIT KGP in various ways. The first task of an autonomous administrator is to act as facilitator and K did this in ample measure...he gave us 24/7 power, water, telephones, a badly needed diversion of the State Highway that was bisecting the campus...and in general a toning up of our work-culture.
He, I learned, had his own spies in my class room and allowed me to do my own thing in acads rather than what everyone else does.
But we avoided meeting each other...I used to send him, as he wished, reprints of my papers every year and he used to scribble a few lines on his scratch sheet encouraging me and send them over to me religiously.
And when he was leaving the campus after a whole decade, I had this desire to meet him for a few minutes and wish him well. But I didn't want to visit his office nor his Bungalow when crowds were likely to be there.
Also I came to know that he had a weakness for pens and so I bought at Thackers a Japanese pen that I liked much and wanted to gift it to him. But I was too shy.
My son, who was then in his Class X of KV, knew all this. I never got the opportunity I wanted to meet him alone, and gave it up...but I was keeping the pen in my pocket...if, perchance.
Finally the day came when he was leaving the campus...his family and luggage had already been dispatched and he was living alone in his Bungalow. And was scheduled to leave that evening for good.
It just happened that we were sipping tea at Harry's when my son saw the Diro's staff car taking a turn towards his Bungalow with him in it in the rear seat. And alerted me. And encouraged me:
"Why not we go and meet him in his Bungalow now?"
And we sprang up on our pushbikes and rushed to his place to catch him before he undressed and slept off post his lunch.
The Security chap manning his Gate told us:
"Sir has just now gone in to his bedroom...I am scared to disturb him since he would be leaving for Cal in the evening."
I was disappointed but told him:
"Please go in and just tell him that Professor G P Sastry and his kid want to meet him for a minute"
The Security chap thought for a while and went in and returned saying:
"Sir is back in the Drawing Room. Go in!"
That was it. We two went in and did our pranams. And I gave the pen to my son and asked him to gift it to K and take his blessings.
As my son tried reaching his shirt pocket, K bent down and assisted him in pinning the pen to his pocket. And it was then that K said with a broad smile:
"Professor Sastry! I didn't expect this from you!"
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“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
...Alexander Pope
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...A young and impressionable moth once set his heart on a certain star. He told his mother about this and she counseled him to set his heart on a bridge lamp instead. "Stars aren't the thing to hang around," she said; "lamps are the things to hang around." "You get somewhere that way," said the moth's father." "You don't get anywhere chasing stars." But the moth would not heed the words of either parent. Every evening at dusk when the star came out he would start flying toward it and every morning at dawn he would crawl back home worn out with his vain endeavor. One day his father said to him, "You haven't burned a wing in months, boy, and it looks to me as if you were never going to. All your brothers have been badly burned flying around street lamps and all your sisters have been terribly singed flying around house lamps. Come on, now, get out of here and get yourself scorched! A big strapping moth like you without a mark on him!"...
...James Thurber
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Well, I was never a moth chasing stars, except maybe in my teens like everyone else. I have been a run-of-the-mill South Indian Brahmin boy passing through the trying times of the second half of the last century.
But if I had a hundred dollars every time I was told:
"I didn't expect this from you!"
in a reproachful tone, I would have been a millionaire by now. All of these failed expectations were from members of my super-size extended family...none from friends who grew up with me and knew me well.
I was out of my father's home by 13 and had been a visiting guest the next 6 decades. So it was natural that my family members didn't quite follow my world line from a student to a teacher to a married man to a father to a retiree to a depression patient to a grandfather to a widower.
Sorry for them...not my fault.
But there was one man who said:
"Professor Sastry! I didn't expect this from you!"
in a surprised but happy tone.
That was Prof K who was our Director for a whole decade.
A few months after he took over in his new post, he visited our Physics Department and expressed his unhappiness with the standard of its faculty in an open meeting...he was himself a renowned experimental physicist.
This of course got our goats and I decided to have as little contact with him as I could. Allergy. I was a Professor myself by then, and after his first Senate Meeting I decided to cut all subsequent meetings.
As I came to know soon enough by intuition, our then HoD met the Director to appraise him of what his colleagues were doing and told him GPS does nothing but bare minimum teaching...no 'serious' research, no Ph D guidance, no project funds, no visits abroad, no nothing. For, our HoD called me and told me that the new Director wanted to know what I was doing, from time to time ;)
This suited me well since I was just then collaborating with Edwin Taylor of MIT, and sent our Diro copies of a few of our exchanges. This apparently broke the ice and K got curious...he visited us and saw what MIT was doing then in the matter of Educational Physics and was pleased to write a few congratulatory lines to me. This naturally turned me into a soft admirer of K...it is a sign of ripeness in an administrator to overturn his first impressions.
So, as time went on, we got to know of each others' strong points but avoided one another scrupulously. I was happy that he changed the face of IIT KGP in various ways. The first task of an autonomous administrator is to act as facilitator and K did this in ample measure...he gave us 24/7 power, water, telephones, a badly needed diversion of the State Highway that was bisecting the campus...and in general a toning up of our work-culture.
He, I learned, had his own spies in my class room and allowed me to do my own thing in acads rather than what everyone else does.
But we avoided meeting each other...I used to send him, as he wished, reprints of my papers every year and he used to scribble a few lines on his scratch sheet encouraging me and send them over to me religiously.
And when he was leaving the campus after a whole decade, I had this desire to meet him for a few minutes and wish him well. But I didn't want to visit his office nor his Bungalow when crowds were likely to be there.
Also I came to know that he had a weakness for pens and so I bought at Thackers a Japanese pen that I liked much and wanted to gift it to him. But I was too shy.
My son, who was then in his Class X of KV, knew all this. I never got the opportunity I wanted to meet him alone, and gave it up...but I was keeping the pen in my pocket...if, perchance.
Finally the day came when he was leaving the campus...his family and luggage had already been dispatched and he was living alone in his Bungalow. And was scheduled to leave that evening for good.
It just happened that we were sipping tea at Harry's when my son saw the Diro's staff car taking a turn towards his Bungalow with him in it in the rear seat. And alerted me. And encouraged me:
"Why not we go and meet him in his Bungalow now?"
And we sprang up on our pushbikes and rushed to his place to catch him before he undressed and slept off post his lunch.
The Security chap manning his Gate told us:
"Sir has just now gone in to his bedroom...I am scared to disturb him since he would be leaving for Cal in the evening."
I was disappointed but told him:
"Please go in and just tell him that Professor G P Sastry and his kid want to meet him for a minute"
The Security chap thought for a while and went in and returned saying:
"Sir is back in the Drawing Room. Go in!"
That was it. We two went in and did our pranams. And I gave the pen to my son and asked him to gift it to K and take his blessings.
As my son tried reaching his shirt pocket, K bent down and assisted him in pinning the pen to his pocket. And it was then that K said with a broad smile:
"Professor Sastry! I didn't expect this from you!"
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Talking of pens, here is a mail I got the other day from an ex-student of Physics @ IIT KGP:
...If I come to Hyderabad I will mail you and we will meet. I am very much fond of old fountain pens and hear that in Hyderabad near Charminar there are many shops who sell them. If possible can you write something about that place in your blog?...
Here you go!
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