*********************************************************************************************************************
From our school days at Muthukur in the early 1950s to our university days at Vizagh in the early 1960s, the Days we celebrated every year were just 2:
1. The Independence Day
2. The Republic Day
Since we firmly believed in the Samuel Johnson dictum:
"Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels"
all we did was to enjoy our two national holidays by playing cloth-football first, and ogling on the beach later. The more patriotic amongst us were glued to the staid speeches of our PM and President trying to tease out their pearls of wisdom transmitted to their creaky radios, leaving much to fertile imagination. And to Melville de Mellow for his mellifluous but routine narration of the Republic Day Parade (our first 'live' broadcast).
And we growled and bitched whenever one or the other of these two days fell on a Sunday thus depriving us of our well-deserved extra holiday (Saturday was a working day).
Americans are more sophisticated, I am told...whenever their national holiday falls on a weekend they are given an official holiday the next Monday.
When I used to tell my students that I joined the faculty of IIT KGP on 1st May 1965, they said I was kidding...1st May is May Day, no?
Well it was not a May Day in 1965. This became a welcome holiday soon after the much more patriotic Left Front came to power in Bengal.
Soon after I joined IIT KGP the Teachers' Day came into being...but by then I was already at the wrong end of the stick. This is still celebrated and happens to fall on the birthday of our ex-President and eminent teacher, Sri S Radhakrishnan.
Unfortunately, the Telugu (and perhaps Hindi) translation of this event turns out to be:
"Upadyaya Dinam"
and Dinam happens to be the Death Anniversary in our lingo...well birth and death are both ephemeral in our Vedanta of which SR was an expert exponent.
Then, sometime in the 1980s, came up the National Science Day on every February 28. This was supposed to be in memory of Sir CV Raman and I always thought it was his birthday. It was only the other day I Googled for it and discovered that it happens to commemorate his Nobel-winning Raman Effect at IACS Calcutta on 28 February 1928. Being a claustrophobic, I routinely missed the National Science Day Lecture in the Netaji Auditorium...the loss was entirely mine.
Well, like me, both Raman and Radhakrishnan had connections with both Vizagh and Calcutta...wise men alike.
And then we came to celebrate the Martyrs' Day at KGP from 1990 onward. This was not exactly a celebration but a commemoration of the two freedom fighters who were shot dead on this day (16 September) while trying to scale the mighty walls of the Hijli Jail which became our IIT KGP post-freedom.
After I retired and settled down in Hyderabad I came to know of hundreds of World Days as a direct result of the arrival of the Internet. Not a single day in the calender is left for leisure anymore.
It was only last week that I celebrated the Wold Suicide Day by posting all of 3 blogs in commemoration of world suicides, both successful and otherwise.
There is a Father's Day, a Mother's Day and what not.
And then the younger set joined and started celebrating more wacky Days.
There is now, I see from the net, a Butterscotch Day and a Cheeseburger Day.
Wonderful! The more the better.
Yesterday while I was fetching Ishani from her school and indulging in the usual small talk, she told me that today their school is celebrating the Crazy Style Day. I thought she was kidding but she showed it to me in her Almanac (a thing we never heard of in our school days). In it there was indeed a notice to parents that they should send their kids not in their dour school uniforms but in weird and crazy hair and other styles in jokey dresses and makeups.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
Since Ishani's parents are a working couple and I am no good at dressing her up, this is the best we could do:
And today Ishani reported that she was the most formally dressed and made up in her class...the crazy prize went to a boy called Sampark or something.
Sigh!
..Posted by Ishani
**********************************************************************************************************************
From our school days at Muthukur in the early 1950s to our university days at Vizagh in the early 1960s, the Days we celebrated every year were just 2:
1. The Independence Day
2. The Republic Day
Since we firmly believed in the Samuel Johnson dictum:
"Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels"
all we did was to enjoy our two national holidays by playing cloth-football first, and ogling on the beach later. The more patriotic amongst us were glued to the staid speeches of our PM and President trying to tease out their pearls of wisdom transmitted to their creaky radios, leaving much to fertile imagination. And to Melville de Mellow for his mellifluous but routine narration of the Republic Day Parade (our first 'live' broadcast).
And we growled and bitched whenever one or the other of these two days fell on a Sunday thus depriving us of our well-deserved extra holiday (Saturday was a working day).
Americans are more sophisticated, I am told...whenever their national holiday falls on a weekend they are given an official holiday the next Monday.
When I used to tell my students that I joined the faculty of IIT KGP on 1st May 1965, they said I was kidding...1st May is May Day, no?
Well it was not a May Day in 1965. This became a welcome holiday soon after the much more patriotic Left Front came to power in Bengal.
Soon after I joined IIT KGP the Teachers' Day came into being...but by then I was already at the wrong end of the stick. This is still celebrated and happens to fall on the birthday of our ex-President and eminent teacher, Sri S Radhakrishnan.
Unfortunately, the Telugu (and perhaps Hindi) translation of this event turns out to be:
"Upadyaya Dinam"
and Dinam happens to be the Death Anniversary in our lingo...well birth and death are both ephemeral in our Vedanta of which SR was an expert exponent.
Then, sometime in the 1980s, came up the National Science Day on every February 28. This was supposed to be in memory of Sir CV Raman and I always thought it was his birthday. It was only the other day I Googled for it and discovered that it happens to commemorate his Nobel-winning Raman Effect at IACS Calcutta on 28 February 1928. Being a claustrophobic, I routinely missed the National Science Day Lecture in the Netaji Auditorium...the loss was entirely mine.
Well, like me, both Raman and Radhakrishnan had connections with both Vizagh and Calcutta...wise men alike.
And then we came to celebrate the Martyrs' Day at KGP from 1990 onward. This was not exactly a celebration but a commemoration of the two freedom fighters who were shot dead on this day (16 September) while trying to scale the mighty walls of the Hijli Jail which became our IIT KGP post-freedom.
After I retired and settled down in Hyderabad I came to know of hundreds of World Days as a direct result of the arrival of the Internet. Not a single day in the calender is left for leisure anymore.
It was only last week that I celebrated the Wold Suicide Day by posting all of 3 blogs in commemoration of world suicides, both successful and otherwise.
There is a Father's Day, a Mother's Day and what not.
And then the younger set joined and started celebrating more wacky Days.
There is now, I see from the net, a Butterscotch Day and a Cheeseburger Day.
Wonderful! The more the better.
Yesterday while I was fetching Ishani from her school and indulging in the usual small talk, she told me that today their school is celebrating the Crazy Style Day. I thought she was kidding but she showed it to me in her Almanac (a thing we never heard of in our school days). In it there was indeed a notice to parents that they should send their kids not in their dour school uniforms but in weird and crazy hair and other styles in jokey dresses and makeups.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
Since Ishani's parents are a working couple and I am no good at dressing her up, this is the best we could do:
And today Ishani reported that she was the most formally dressed and made up in her class...the crazy prize went to a boy called Sampark or something.
Sigh!
..Posted by Ishani
**********************************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment