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I recall vividly the first time I heard the word 'copycat'.
I was 45 then and living in Qrs C1-97 at IIT KGP. Prof Saraswats were living as our next-but-one-door neighbors in Qrs C1-95. Their cute elder daughter Rinku was then in Class VII in the notorious KV, IIT KGP. She often used to visit us at random to play with my kid-son and enjoy my wife's idlis or dosas or whatever was going strong then. She was addicted to riddles like we were at her age in our school at Muthukur (we used to call them: Podupu Kathalu).
And she assaulted me with this riddle:
"Ten cats were having a joy ride in a boat on the river. One of them jumped into the river and got drowned. How many cats are left in the boat?"
I was too smart to answer: "Nine". So I hedged and dodged and quibbled and quipped but to no avail till I had to admit shamefaced:
"I don't know...tell me the answer"
"Zero"
"How come?"
"The rest all jumped into the river after the first one"
"Why so? To rescue each other?"
"No! Uncle!!!...They were all copycats"
I then asked her where she found this cute riddle. And she told me that her dad subscribes to Champak (English) to improve his kids' English. I then turned into a copycat myself and started subscribing to that magazine to improve my English, sort of. And I used to enjoy its riddles like:
"What does the police constable have on his bread?"
"Traffic jam"
The first 'copycat' I watched was when I went to the then luscious Alipore Zoo in Calcutta in 1965 with my friend. He took me to an open bird cage in which a parrot was sitting grimly and chewing the nuts that were being fed to it by a dozen visitors surrounding her. And one of them asked:
"Khana Khayega?"
And she at once repeated in squeaky tones:
"Khana Khayega?"
Before then I had only read about talking parrots but never seen one. I was amazed, till someone else asked:
"Paani Peeyega?"
But she repeated:
"Khana Khayega"
Apparently her vocabulary was not very extensive.
Much later I also read with wonder that our differently-abled Cosmologist was gifted what was called a 'speech synthesizer'.
A couple of months back Ishani brought her dad's iPhone and showed me what she called a Talking Tom. And I was as excited as she was. And she told me that her dad downloaded this 'app' for her pleasure.
And I recalled the first time a girl (22) came to me for a dozen recos at IIT KGP and said she was 'apping' in her fourth year itself...app had become a verb too...I first thought she was aping but perhaps not altogether.
And Ishani constantly plays with my old-gold Nokia Asha while I am busy trying to blog...changing wallpaper, switching to silent mode, deleting photos, and calling up folks at random from memory. And suddenly I hear a tone that announces the advent of a new sms and I grab my phone from her tiny hands and avidly read the fond message:
"Thank you for downloading our app. An amount of Rs 50 has been successfully deducted from your Airtel Main balance"
Yesterday my son was in his tenth heaven since he said he acquired a dream phone dead cheap from the US. He called it Google Nexus-5. And I asked him if it is Nexus or Lexus, since I knew that Lexus is a luxury car (my MIT pen-friend had gifted me what we called Uncle Tom's book titled: "Lexus and the Olive Tree" a few decades back when globalization was a new word in our lexicon).
And my son looked at me as though I was a moron and said:
"It is Nexus...an Android phone"
This info sent me at a usual tangent and I thought of the thyroid gland and the names of the diseases we had to mug up if we had an excess or deficiency of its blighted hormone, like goiter and dwarfism and such in our high school.
But of course I was wrong. He repeated:
"Android...not thyroid"
And then I concluded it must be a cross between androgen and steroid.
Anyway it doesn't matter much...what does the color of the cat matter as long as he catches mice?
And my son gave me a cute demo of his Android's capabilities. He put his mouth near it and shouted:
"Open Google!"
This reminded me at once of the story of Ali Baba & the Forty Thieves that I read in Chandmama.
And, after a couple of repeat attempts, what I thought was a female voice feebly responded:
"Opening Google"
And lo and behold, Google did open to my utter amazement.
He next shouted:
"Open Facebook!"
And apparently the Facebook opened as was confirmed by Ishani watching by my side...I never opened any Facebook and so needed an impartial witness.
He then shouted:
"Open gpsastry.blogspot.com!"
And my fond blogspot opened all at once. And then he shouted:
"Shut down gpsatry.blogspot.com!"
Nothing happened...it was scrolling down.
He was angry and shouted aloud:
"Shut down gpsatry.blogspot.com!"
And the female voice fumed:
"Can't you wait, young man?...Don't you see, I am reading your dad's fascinating post 'Unsocial Media'?"
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I recall vividly the first time I heard the word 'copycat'.
I was 45 then and living in Qrs C1-97 at IIT KGP. Prof Saraswats were living as our next-but-one-door neighbors in Qrs C1-95. Their cute elder daughter Rinku was then in Class VII in the notorious KV, IIT KGP. She often used to visit us at random to play with my kid-son and enjoy my wife's idlis or dosas or whatever was going strong then. She was addicted to riddles like we were at her age in our school at Muthukur (we used to call them: Podupu Kathalu).
And she assaulted me with this riddle:
"Ten cats were having a joy ride in a boat on the river. One of them jumped into the river and got drowned. How many cats are left in the boat?"
I was too smart to answer: "Nine". So I hedged and dodged and quibbled and quipped but to no avail till I had to admit shamefaced:
"I don't know...tell me the answer"
"Zero"
"How come?"
"The rest all jumped into the river after the first one"
"Why so? To rescue each other?"
"No! Uncle!!!...They were all copycats"
I then asked her where she found this cute riddle. And she told me that her dad subscribes to Champak (English) to improve his kids' English. I then turned into a copycat myself and started subscribing to that magazine to improve my English, sort of. And I used to enjoy its riddles like:
"What does the police constable have on his bread?"
"Traffic jam"
The first 'copycat' I watched was when I went to the then luscious Alipore Zoo in Calcutta in 1965 with my friend. He took me to an open bird cage in which a parrot was sitting grimly and chewing the nuts that were being fed to it by a dozen visitors surrounding her. And one of them asked:
"Khana Khayega?"
And she at once repeated in squeaky tones:
"Khana Khayega?"
Before then I had only read about talking parrots but never seen one. I was amazed, till someone else asked:
"Paani Peeyega?"
But she repeated:
"Khana Khayega"
Apparently her vocabulary was not very extensive.
Much later I also read with wonder that our differently-abled Cosmologist was gifted what was called a 'speech synthesizer'.
A couple of months back Ishani brought her dad's iPhone and showed me what she called a Talking Tom. And I was as excited as she was. And she told me that her dad downloaded this 'app' for her pleasure.
And I recalled the first time a girl (22) came to me for a dozen recos at IIT KGP and said she was 'apping' in her fourth year itself...app had become a verb too...I first thought she was aping but perhaps not altogether.
And Ishani constantly plays with my old-gold Nokia Asha while I am busy trying to blog...changing wallpaper, switching to silent mode, deleting photos, and calling up folks at random from memory. And suddenly I hear a tone that announces the advent of a new sms and I grab my phone from her tiny hands and avidly read the fond message:
"Thank you for downloading our app. An amount of Rs 50 has been successfully deducted from your Airtel Main balance"
Yesterday my son was in his tenth heaven since he said he acquired a dream phone dead cheap from the US. He called it Google Nexus-5. And I asked him if it is Nexus or Lexus, since I knew that Lexus is a luxury car (my MIT pen-friend had gifted me what we called Uncle Tom's book titled: "Lexus and the Olive Tree" a few decades back when globalization was a new word in our lexicon).
And my son looked at me as though I was a moron and said:
"It is Nexus...an Android phone"
This info sent me at a usual tangent and I thought of the thyroid gland and the names of the diseases we had to mug up if we had an excess or deficiency of its blighted hormone, like goiter and dwarfism and such in our high school.
But of course I was wrong. He repeated:
"Android...not thyroid"
And then I concluded it must be a cross between androgen and steroid.
Anyway it doesn't matter much...what does the color of the cat matter as long as he catches mice?
And my son gave me a cute demo of his Android's capabilities. He put his mouth near it and shouted:
"Open Google!"
This reminded me at once of the story of Ali Baba & the Forty Thieves that I read in Chandmama.
And, after a couple of repeat attempts, what I thought was a female voice feebly responded:
"Opening Google"
And lo and behold, Google did open to my utter amazement.
He next shouted:
"Open Facebook!"
And apparently the Facebook opened as was confirmed by Ishani watching by my side...I never opened any Facebook and so needed an impartial witness.
He then shouted:
"Open gpsastry.blogspot.com!"
And my fond blogspot opened all at once. And then he shouted:
"Shut down gpsatry.blogspot.com!"
Nothing happened...it was scrolling down.
He was angry and shouted aloud:
"Shut down gpsatry.blogspot.com!"
And the female voice fumed:
"Can't you wait, young man?...Don't you see, I am reading your dad's fascinating post 'Unsocial Media'?"
...Posted by Ishani
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