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William Radice is a renowned Tagore scholar and I happened to read excerpts from his Santiniketan prose pieces. They were very sensitive and very readable.
I had an amusing exchange with him about 14 years ago. I was then taking The Statesman at KGP. Every fortnight there used to be a piece by Radice in the Editorial spread, titled something like "Letter from England". They were eminently readable.
In one such episode, Radice posed a question and invited answers from readers, with a prize awarded for the best answer.
He described a game show from a TV channel in England. After the first round, the TV contestants were left with one choice out of three to bag the jackpot. Radice described the game show and said the viewers got to know the right choice, but he couldn't get the logic behind it. It involved a little bit of reasoning based on conditional compound probabilities. After describing the game, he invited Statesman readers to describe their answer along with their logic in 100 words or less in such simple English prose that a layman like him with no knowledge of the Probability Theory could follow clearly. The contest was open to readers under the age of !8 (school students). He announced a pot of Rosogollas from K.C. Das as a prize for the best entry.
After reading the puzzle late at night, I found it interesting, cracked it in a few minutes and composed a short piece of around 50 words trying to put my logic in the simplest possible English prose devoid of jargon. I then e-mailed my answer to him, with the disclaimer: "I am 58 years old and so not eligible for this contest. But I happen to be a teacher who is obliged to teach kids of 18 in a language which is the mother tongue of neither them nor me. So, I would be very happy if you could judge my answer for its lucidity and respond". And I gave out my address as a Professor of Physics at IIT KGP (W.B.).
Within half an hour I got a reply from Radice (evening for him) stating that he now understood clearly the logic behind the conundrum and my piece would help him as a benchmark for judging the eligible contestants. So far so good.
A month down the line, he announced the winning entry by a student of Xaviers, Calcutta or such. He quoted it verbatim among the many responses and asked the winner to claim his prize on his account from KCD.
But, before quoting the winning entry, he had the courtesy to acknowledge in print: "I am indebted to an English teacher from Bengal, by name GP Sastry (58), whose answer helped me understand the logic and was useful in judging the contestants. Of course, Sastry declared that he was naturally ineligible for the contest".
Subsequently I thanked him for his attribution, but reminded him that I am unfortunately not an English teacher, but a Physics teacher as he can check from my address.
Prompt came his reply apologizing for the error and with the memorable sentence: "How difficult it is not to make mistakes!"
Great attitude!
Subsequently we had a few amusing mails and the thing naturally petered off. A couple of years later he visited IIT KGP for giving the Tagore Memorial Lecture in the Netaji Auditorium. As you can guess from my shy nature, I neither attended his Lecture nor met him.
A true scholar!
The above piece was first written and posted on October 24, 2008 and was Post # 6 of this blog that has grown like sin to nearly 1800 posts.
When the contest mentioned above was held, I was 58 and a Physics teacher. Now I am 71. I left Physics a decade ago but I still get a huge kick when I recall that a Tagore Scholar from London confused me with an English teacher...
Tails Up!
...Posted by Ishani
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William Radice is a renowned Tagore scholar and I happened to read excerpts from his Santiniketan prose pieces. They were very sensitive and very readable.
I had an amusing exchange with him about 14 years ago. I was then taking The Statesman at KGP. Every fortnight there used to be a piece by Radice in the Editorial spread, titled something like "Letter from England". They were eminently readable.
In one such episode, Radice posed a question and invited answers from readers, with a prize awarded for the best answer.
He described a game show from a TV channel in England. After the first round, the TV contestants were left with one choice out of three to bag the jackpot. Radice described the game show and said the viewers got to know the right choice, but he couldn't get the logic behind it. It involved a little bit of reasoning based on conditional compound probabilities. After describing the game, he invited Statesman readers to describe their answer along with their logic in 100 words or less in such simple English prose that a layman like him with no knowledge of the Probability Theory could follow clearly. The contest was open to readers under the age of !8 (school students). He announced a pot of Rosogollas from K.C. Das as a prize for the best entry.
After reading the puzzle late at night, I found it interesting, cracked it in a few minutes and composed a short piece of around 50 words trying to put my logic in the simplest possible English prose devoid of jargon. I then e-mailed my answer to him, with the disclaimer: "I am 58 years old and so not eligible for this contest. But I happen to be a teacher who is obliged to teach kids of 18 in a language which is the mother tongue of neither them nor me. So, I would be very happy if you could judge my answer for its lucidity and respond". And I gave out my address as a Professor of Physics at IIT KGP (W.B.).
Within half an hour I got a reply from Radice (evening for him) stating that he now understood clearly the logic behind the conundrum and my piece would help him as a benchmark for judging the eligible contestants. So far so good.
A month down the line, he announced the winning entry by a student of Xaviers, Calcutta or such. He quoted it verbatim among the many responses and asked the winner to claim his prize on his account from KCD.
But, before quoting the winning entry, he had the courtesy to acknowledge in print: "I am indebted to an English teacher from Bengal, by name GP Sastry (58), whose answer helped me understand the logic and was useful in judging the contestants. Of course, Sastry declared that he was naturally ineligible for the contest".
Subsequently I thanked him for his attribution, but reminded him that I am unfortunately not an English teacher, but a Physics teacher as he can check from my address.
Prompt came his reply apologizing for the error and with the memorable sentence: "How difficult it is not to make mistakes!"
Great attitude!
Subsequently we had a few amusing mails and the thing naturally petered off. A couple of years later he visited IIT KGP for giving the Tagore Memorial Lecture in the Netaji Auditorium. As you can guess from my shy nature, I neither attended his Lecture nor met him.
A true scholar!
Tail Wags
When the contest mentioned above was held, I was 58 and a Physics teacher. Now I am 71. I left Physics a decade ago but I still get a huge kick when I recall that a Tagore Scholar from London confused me with an English teacher...
Tails Up!
...Posted by Ishani
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