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...Many non-human animals also have some kind of opposable thumb or toe. An animal species is said to have opposable thumbs if the thumb is capable of bending in such a way that it can touch all the other digits on the hand or foot. Most species do not have opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs are a signature feature of the primate family and played a large role in the ancient humans' invention and use of tools...
...wiki
Dronacharya (Professor Dron) arrived much later than primates but he was acutely aware of the usefulness of the opposable thumb in archery. And when he found that a tribal lad named Ekalavya was proving better than his fond student Arjun, and that the young lad used his idol as a virtual guru, Prof D claimed Ekalavya's right thumb as his fees, rather shamelessly. This was to cut him off as a competitor to Arjun.
And Prof D asked Arjun and his brothers to fetch King Drupada as his fees...he had a grouse against Drupada whose daughter ironically got married to Arjun & Bros in a sale-deal. And Arjun & Bros brought Drupada tied up to the back of his chariot much like the stepney wheel of a Porch:
But Prof D somehow chose to fight against Arjun & Bros and was beheaded when he was in a sitting position by none other than Drupada's son, Drishtadyumna...much like American photo-journos being beheaded in Iraq these days.
_gives_a_thumbs-up_signal,_indicating_he_is_ready_to_launch.jpg)
If you decline to give the chap his free ride, but go ahead and watch in your rear-view mirror, you will find that his thumbs-up sign is replaced with the middle-finger-up sign.
...Posted by Ishani
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When she was in her Nursery Class a couple of years ago, Ishani stunned me one day by displaying the above thumb-forefinger sign. I asked her what she meant by it and she replied:
"Super!"
"What is so super now?"
"Your new dress...you look like a policeman!"
Pretty soon I learned that, in South India, 'super' is superior to even 'superb'. Here is a comment I got from a retired professor at IISC, Bangalore, when he read one of my 6 posts on Spin many years ago:
Dear GPS,
Simply super! (not superb). Like Feynman, I have to still understand it! So, I am in good company I feel. You should come here and give a course of ten lectures on quantum mechanics to college teachers and M.Sc. students. You should not keep it to your self - really. We will plan it during this year.
with best wishes to you and family, Affly, JR
Needless to say I bunked, for fear it would interfere with my daily blogging...and I knew less QM than his ilk...blogging is one thing and lecturing quite another.
This was not the first time I heard 'super' with its hand-sign here. When I had to shift my huge luggage from KGP to Nellore in October 2005, I had engaged the only 'packer' available at KGP. He was a hefty chap called Kanakaiah and he arrived with his kid-son to do the entire packing which went on and on for 20 days, upsetting my wife and me thoroughly. Every morning they brought cartloads of hay and gunny sacks and gunny fiber and gigantic needles.
When the luggage arrived at Nellore we employed a couple of coolies to unpack the 50 odd items. And they stared at the securely sewn-up gunny sacks and on opening one, the senior chap flourished Ishani's opposable thumb-sign and exclaimed:
"Super packing!...Never seen one like this before"
It is a different matter that 4 years later I had to get all that luggage packed up again and shifted to Hyderabad, and I employed Agarwal's Packers & Movers. They took 3 hours to pack, 12 hours to travel in their luggage van, and another 3 hours to unpack and arrange all the items. This must surely rank as:
"Super-Duper"
I am told that opposable thumb is one of the Darwinian breakthroughs in evolution:
...wiki
Dronacharya (Professor Dron) arrived much later than primates but he was acutely aware of the usefulness of the opposable thumb in archery. And when he found that a tribal lad named Ekalavya was proving better than his fond student Arjun, and that the young lad used his idol as a virtual guru, Prof D claimed Ekalavya's right thumb as his fees, rather shamelessly. This was to cut him off as a competitor to Arjun.
And Prof D asked Arjun and his brothers to fetch King Drupada as his fees...he had a grouse against Drupada whose daughter ironically got married to Arjun & Bros in a sale-deal. And Arjun & Bros brought Drupada tied up to the back of his chariot much like the stepney wheel of a Porch:
But Prof D somehow chose to fight against Arjun & Bros and was beheaded when he was in a sitting position by none other than Drupada's son, Drishtadyumna...much like American photo-journos being beheaded in Iraq these days.
There seems to be a moral in that story that I can't pinpoint right now. Maybe Professors ought to follow their hearts than the Conduct Rules imposed by others if they wish to escape beheading...or maybe not:
My father taught me carroms at a very young age and I became the school champion willy-nilly. And I found that my opposable thumb was indispensable...I was using my thumb-middle finger combo as my device to hit the striker. Of course some use the thumb-forefinger or even the forefinger-on-middle finger tools as their favorites.
Prof AVKR was a fond player of carroms in our Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP in the 1960s. He was always using his thumb-forefinger combo. A match would be in progress between him and a seasoned opponent, with many onlookers. AVKR had a nervous twitch...his hand and fingers always shaking like needles in a sewing machine.
And he would wait and wait and wait till he finds a momentary lull in his twitch and then launch his striker which most of the time found its target unerringly. And he used to win...less by his prowess but more by the mounting blood pressure of his opponent and the silent audience going nuts.
In my youth in South India, the sign of a tip-seeker used to be flipping his thumb over the forefinger, much like a referee tossing his coin. But I learned from my son that the standard American sign for tip-seeking is to rub her thumb over forefinger, like in counting notes...American waiters apparently don't believe in coins but only currency.
I first saw the Thumbs Up sign on a bottle of soft drink deviously manufactured by the fleeing Coca Cola company as a spoiler for a local brand called Double 7 launched by the short-lived Janata Government in 1977...the Double Seven (77) proved as short-lived as her Janata Government. And the Thums Up was soon taken over by a rejuvenated Coca Cola.
The Thumbs Up sign used to be the All-Clear signal used by fighter plane pilots (awake) in our World War II movies:
This sign has now metamorphosed into many things like the hitch-hiker's sign on the roads of Hyderabad:
If you decline to give the chap his free ride, but go ahead and watch in your rear-view mirror, you will find that his thumbs-up sign is replaced with the middle-finger-up sign.
...Posted by Ishani
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