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During our childhood, ours was a completely floor-sitting culture...we were 9 in our household and there was but one chair.
And that belonged exclusively to my HM Father. It was always wedded to his office table which was a massive affair glued to the wall. The chair itself was too tall for me and I had to get up into it (when Father was away) by climbing, stepping on its tie-rods. Getting down was messy and athletic...it called for jumping down.
Now that we are on this topic of getting up and getting down I may mention they are entirely different things...not at all precise opposites of each other. Folks think that getting down is easier than getting up but it is not so. For one thing, the chances of falling are ten times greater while getting down rather than getting up.
And there is this Management Rule that while you go up the hierarchy ladder, you better be nice to the guys over whose heads you are going up...because you have to soon be getting down rapidly and meet them on your way.
But since I was an athlete while in my village, I saved my head reflexively and took the hit on my left shoulder which was strong enough to take the brunt...after all, like Atlas, it carried the IIT KGP tower for all of 40 years...
And then I found that my right ankle was not what it used to be...a few ginger steps were enough to prove it. It got twisted like a Tamilian tongue. And by the time I limped back to my flat, it swelled like my ego. And then for almost a month it gave me trouble, walking.
In our apartment block the lifts are dicey...no one knows when they would stall. And when they close, the gates are opaque and you are unseen and unheard. And cell phones don't work there...not that they work outside of them. Anyway, I prefer, when I have to fetch Ishani from her school to go down the steps...all of 9 floors. And I find that my ankle gives so much trouble that I have to take each step twice instead of jumping two steps at a time...which I used to do when I was late to my lecture class at IIT KGP.
But climbing all those steps is a breeze...the ankle doesn't whine...
Big digression there...
Anyway, once I got up Father's chair, there was a lot to inspect and fiddle with on his office table. First there was a sheaf of papers...not white papers but brown ones...as rough as my brow now...World War II just got over and our British rulers spent all our money fighting their Hitler and Tojo.
No fancy fountain pen, like the Waterman Father got as part-dowry, would be able to survive its attack on the brown paper. But all schools, government offices, courts of law, and treasury had to make do with it...except perhaps the ICS Babus.
And there was this elaborate writing equipment at one end of the writing table. That came in a wooden stand which had:
1. A square groove in which an ink-pot sat snugly.
2. The ink-pot itself....this was made of hard glass that would never break, like my ankle, when it took a toss on the floor. It contained ink.
3. Ink sachets. These came in folded papers. When unfolded, they revealed blackish ink powder which was supposed to dissolve in water to make ink then and there when the bottle got emptied. They were like the sachets we got from the Local Dispensary of Dr Iswar Reddy...they often contained what Father cutely called Magsulf...an abbreviation for Magnesium Sulfate, a thing to avoid...you will run to the loo a dozen times before your bowels exhaust themselves, and start anew on their depredations.
4. The pen. This was a wooden thing shaped like a mouse...it began with a head that had a mouth for pushing in the nib, and ended in a tail...with a stomach that would fit snugly in the palm of a HM.
5. Nibs. These had a split tongue like that of a venomous cobra. You push the brassy things into the groove in the pen, dip them into the ink-pot, and get going.
6. Blotting papers. These were generally white to start with. And very rough and porous like an earthen pot. When you write on the brown paper with your pen-like contraption, it starts with a blotch...the ink doesn't flow smoothly like in a fountain pen, but oozes out on a first-come-first-served basis. Then you take the blotting paper and demurely place it on the blot...the blotting paper soaks up the extra ink. Demurely because, if you are in a hurry, the blot would spread itself into an India map. Incidentally, the blotting paper is supposed to remove blots, not cause them...some anomaly in nomenclature there ;)
That's all for today...Ishani is waiting to press the 'Publish' button and then 'View Page' button and then count how many times her name appears in each post...
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During our childhood, ours was a completely floor-sitting culture...we were 9 in our household and there was but one chair.
And that belonged exclusively to my HM Father. It was always wedded to his office table which was a massive affair glued to the wall. The chair itself was too tall for me and I had to get up into it (when Father was away) by climbing, stepping on its tie-rods. Getting down was messy and athletic...it called for jumping down.
Now that we are on this topic of getting up and getting down I may mention they are entirely different things...not at all precise opposites of each other. Folks think that getting down is easier than getting up but it is not so. For one thing, the chances of falling are ten times greater while getting down rather than getting up.
And there is this Management Rule that while you go up the hierarchy ladder, you better be nice to the guys over whose heads you are going up...because you have to soon be getting down rapidly and meet them on your way.
When you are afflicted with cataract in your eyes, the first thing you notice is that climbing stairs is easy as a pie...but not climbing down, with or without bifocals. You have to probe gingerly with your feet.
Again, as I said the other day, I had a nasty fall recently on the roadside. I went up a block of concrete to spit in a dark spot in the night...that was no problem at all. But when I stepped down, I didn't notice a shallow storm water drain and hit its edge and took a
tumble...one moment I was erect and the next I found myself horizontal...I thought for a moment I was struck down by Fate. But since I was an athlete while in my village, I saved my head reflexively and took the hit on my left shoulder which was strong enough to take the brunt...after all, like Atlas, it carried the IIT KGP tower for all of 40 years...
And then I found that my right ankle was not what it used to be...a few ginger steps were enough to prove it. It got twisted like a Tamilian tongue. And by the time I limped back to my flat, it swelled like my ego. And then for almost a month it gave me trouble, walking.
In our apartment block the lifts are dicey...no one knows when they would stall. And when they close, the gates are opaque and you are unseen and unheard. And cell phones don't work there...not that they work outside of them. Anyway, I prefer, when I have to fetch Ishani from her school to go down the steps...all of 9 floors. And I find that my ankle gives so much trouble that I have to take each step twice instead of jumping two steps at a time...which I used to do when I was late to my lecture class at IIT KGP.
But climbing all those steps is a breeze...the ankle doesn't whine...
Big digression there...
Anyway, once I got up Father's chair, there was a lot to inspect and fiddle with on his office table. First there was a sheaf of papers...not white papers but brown ones...as rough as my brow now...World War II just got over and our British rulers spent all our money fighting their Hitler and Tojo.
No fancy fountain pen, like the Waterman Father got as part-dowry, would be able to survive its attack on the brown paper. But all schools, government offices, courts of law, and treasury had to make do with it...except perhaps the ICS Babus.
And there was this elaborate writing equipment at one end of the writing table. That came in a wooden stand which had:
1. A square groove in which an ink-pot sat snugly.
2. The ink-pot itself....this was made of hard glass that would never break, like my ankle, when it took a toss on the floor. It contained ink.
3. Ink sachets. These came in folded papers. When unfolded, they revealed blackish ink powder which was supposed to dissolve in water to make ink then and there when the bottle got emptied. They were like the sachets we got from the Local Dispensary of Dr Iswar Reddy...they often contained what Father cutely called Magsulf...an abbreviation for Magnesium Sulfate, a thing to avoid...you will run to the loo a dozen times before your bowels exhaust themselves, and start anew on their depredations.
4. The pen. This was a wooden thing shaped like a mouse...it began with a head that had a mouth for pushing in the nib, and ended in a tail...with a stomach that would fit snugly in the palm of a HM.
5. Nibs. These had a split tongue like that of a venomous cobra. You push the brassy things into the groove in the pen, dip them into the ink-pot, and get going.
6. Blotting papers. These were generally white to start with. And very rough and porous like an earthen pot. When you write on the brown paper with your pen-like contraption, it starts with a blotch...the ink doesn't flow smoothly like in a fountain pen, but oozes out on a first-come-first-served basis. Then you take the blotting paper and demurely place it on the blot...the blotting paper soaks up the extra ink. Demurely because, if you are in a hurry, the blot would spread itself into an India map. Incidentally, the blotting paper is supposed to remove blots, not cause them...some anomaly in nomenclature there ;)
That's all for today...Ishani is waiting to press the 'Publish' button and then 'View Page' button and then count how many times her name appears in each post...
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1 comment:
My father, as you might have known, was a Government Officer. He too had all the above paraphernalia.
One difference, though. The blotting paper was fixed to a jig that held the paper tightly. This thing was a short (about 3 inches wide) semi-cylindrical wooden piece topped by a flat wooden piece. The two pieces were screwed together by a round wooden handle (like the handle of Rubber stamps of yesteryears) on top.
Whenever I see the see-saw in the children's play corner of our local park, I am reminded of that blotting paper holder !
I wonder why the HMs of those glorious times were not provided this particular accessory !
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