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Here is a spot of dialogue from Shaw's Man and Superman:
RAMSDEN: .....You pose as an advanced man. Let me tell you that I was an advanced
man before you were born.
TANNER: I knew it was a long time ago.
That rather sums up my son's attitude to me nowadays.
Long long ago, much much before he was born, I was the tech-wizard in my family circles.
Once when I was home on a summer vacation from KGP, my mom was complaining
about the lack of a portable night-lamp in the market.
At once I bought a solid wooden switch board, step-down transformer, jewel lamp,
piano-switch, socket, shade...the works; and rigged up a cute but rugged affair
that can be hung from a peg on any wall, and still is fondly used by her. Apparently,
whoever visited our home used to ask her where she bought it from and she was
proudly showing it off as the handiwork of her brilliant son.
And everyone who is someone in the Phy Dept at KGP knew that I was the 4-th Year Lab
wizard next only to BK Mathur.
And my kid-son was listening raptly to my wild boasts.
Sometime in my late 50s by when my son got admitted to IIT KGP willy-nilly, I started
losing touch.
It all began with Windows 95, which I had to learn from him.
Then on his contempt for me as a slow-learner persisted till the other day.
I ate my most humble pie when he demonstrated quickly in a few rapid-fire strokes
how to withdraw money from the Hyderabad ATMs, and left it at that.
My misery then on knows no bounds.
The damn thing has, printed behind her in bold letters, a couple of dozen error codes.
I got them all by and by from:
"Your card was not inserted properly"
to
"Get lost, you fool!"
Once when I was negotiating gingerly with a new and unfamiliar machine, she said:
"Collect Cash"
but forgot to tell me from which of her 3 holes.
By the time I found it, she withdrew the entire bundle, but deducted Rs 10, 000 from
my poor Pension Account.
And when I used to describe my gory encounters with these witches, my son used to
laugh and laugh.
Because he stopped visiting his Bank five years ago, and ATMs three years ago.
Nowadays, he does all his money transactions on his 3G palm top, a thing that scares the
shoot out of me.
...And I was waiting for my chance...
It came knocking the other day when he was dying to fetch his Tata Indigo Beauty
from the showroom.
The Sales Guy (SG) fixed everything up himself while my son was fiddling with his
palmtop.
And said coolly that he can drive it away as soon as he makes the down-payment
of a couple of lakhs and sundries.
My son whipped out and handed his device to SG and asked him to enter his figure.
SG declined and said that online transactions are not permitted in his outlet.
Payments by Check or Draft alone are accepted.
My son whipped out his Check Book (which I asked him to carry), filled it in , handed it
over to SG, and asked for the Car Keys.
SG demurred and said it will take 3 days for the Check to be realized and the car can be
released only after that.
My son's face fell; seeing which SG suggested that if we could get him a Bank Draft,
he can release the car in a minute.
My son looked at me, and reading his face, I knew my chance of sweet revenge has
arrived.
He drove me to our SBI which was teeming with ten counters, each with a beeline of
twenty customers waiting to be 'served' by the lovely but leisurely dame behind the
cubbyhole.
And I showed him the sheaf of forms, handed him my pen, and went out for a cup of
Tea.
By the time I returned, a good 15 minutes later, my son was trying vainly to fill up the
form in his fifth attempt (the debris of the crumpled four was strewn all around). On seeing me, he gave up and surrendered. It took a couple of minutes for my practiced hand to fill it up and a few more minutes with my Relationship Manager to get the Draft and hand it over to my son with a flourish.
I do hope his future laughs at my lo-tech incompetence won't be all that disdainful...
you never know...I had to fight literally with my ATM today...I was pulling the cash out
with all my might while she was pulling it back in with all her might...it was a draw.
Tailpiece
"He said adivasis are growing poorer..."
How does one 'grow' poorer?
This guy would also have said: "The striptease artist was growing more and more naked"
Or:
"The patient was growing thinner by the day"
If he says he could replace 'growing' with 'getting', I would retort that poverty or nakedness or weight loss are not things he can 'get' from the market place...nor are they very 'becoming' of him.
Here is another 'dying' metaphor in today's DC:
"The cupboard of corruption of the UPA is overflowing, and more and more skeletons are dying to come out..."
Skeletons 'dying'?
...Posted by Ishani
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