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The first I heard of 'bone of contention' was to the city of Constantinople (modern Istanbul) in my pre-university history book. Apparently this city changed hands several times over its long history and was regarded as the Gateway to the East...and we had to mug up why.
Our own Delhi has been no less a bone of contention as historic cities go. Its origin is traced to Hastinapura and Indraprastha. Since then it has been the golden apple of India. And the Brits, who were comfortably settled in Calcutta had to change their capital overnight to Delhi for symbolic and strategic reasons. It is said that this abrupt decision of theirs led to an attack of depression for Lord Curzon who built Calcutta's leading monument, the Victoria Memorial:
...Personally I was enchanted by Victoria Memorial and would spend hours there rather than at the Red Fort.
And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
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...Whatever records exist of Delhi- in the form of scriptures or
archaeological evidences, they crown Delhi as the Capital city of some
empire or the other all through, with minor random breaks in between,
making Delhi one of the longest serving Capitals and one of the oldest
inhabited cities in the world.[1][2] It is considered to be a city built, destroyed and rebuilt several times, as outsiders who successfully invaded the Indian Subcontinent
would ransack the existing capital city in Delhi, and those who came to
conquer and stay would be so impressed by the city's strategic location
as to make it their capital and rebuild it in their own way.[3][4]
...wiki
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Our own Delhi has been no less a bone of contention as historic cities go. Its origin is traced to Hastinapura and Indraprastha. Since then it has been the golden apple of India. And the Brits, who were comfortably settled in Calcutta had to change their capital overnight to Delhi for symbolic and strategic reasons. It is said that this abrupt decision of theirs led to an attack of depression for Lord Curzon who built Calcutta's leading monument, the Victoria Memorial:
Curzon said,
- "Let us, therefore, have a building, stately, spacious, monumental and grand, to which every newcomer in Calcutta will turn, to which all the resident population, European and Native, will flock, where all classes will learn the lessons of history, and see revived before their eyes the marvels of the past."[7]
...Personally I was enchanted by Victoria Memorial and would spend hours there rather than at the Red Fort.
Coming to bones proper, I read in my childhood that the loaded dice that Shakuni made were from the bones of Jarasandha who was killed by Bhim on the instructions of Krishna. And so whenever Bhim was around, the dice obeyed his GROWL rather than the crafty calls of Shakuni...they were scared of Bhim, chota ya bada.
And then I watched Cecil De Mille's movie 'Samson and Delilah' in which Samson kills a thousand and odd men with the jaw bone of a jackass:
And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
When I was in my first year of university, I was skeletal. And my didi was doing her anatomy in her MBBS. And she was too timid (mohamaatam) to beg, borrow, or steal a good and whole skeleton. So she used to ask me to stand up before her and, with her Cunningham Manual in one hand, she would go round me doing pradakshins and feeling and naming all the bones that were available to her: radius, ulna, tibia, fibula, clavicle, mandible, scapula, sternum, patella and sundry others, while I would be mugging up my bending moment formulae with Worsnop & Flint in my hand.
Talking of bending moments, there was this young man in the math department of IIT KGP who suddenly rose to fame as an expert in biomechanics when the science (or art) was itself in its infancy. And published dozens of papers in the best of journals and rose to be a professor and a member of editorial committees, referee of almost all journals in the field, and won many awards and honors. He soon became the apple of the eye of many research scholars.
However, as always in academics, his colleagues soon turned his detractors, and used to tell me that all that this gent does and did was to apply the formulae of bending moments we learned in our first year physics at our university, to human (and animal) bones. I used to ask them why they themselves didn't do it and become famous. And they replied, impossible, the one who gets in on the ground floor (as the Yankees say) doesn't let anyone else in...their papers used to be refereed by this original bone-man of the math dept.
Thurber drew hundreds of pictures of his dogs during his time and they all became popular. And you know, dogs love bones and fight for them and hide them like our mathematicians. Thurber too had his detractors who used to say that he was useless and fifth rate as an artist since he could never draw necks. This much is however true:
All his figures were rather boneless...no contention there...
My favorite Lockhorns too had their bone of contention...there was a cartoon when the wife enters their drawing room exulting:
"I won the custody of the remote"
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1 comment:
Hello! Would you be able to tell me where you read about Bhimasena's growls intimidating the dice that were made out of Jarasandha's bones? Thank you so much in advance!
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