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Our school books were replete with aphorisms. The two that stuck are:
1. Civilization is what we wear...culture is what we are
2. Manners make a man
Manners are different from mannerisms...like legs are different than arms. Of course for Ogden Nash's Octopus they are not much different:
Rather like the monkey's. Here too her arms suddenly become legs when she scoots.
The first mannerism I watched as a boy was of my eldest cousin's. She had this perpetual twinkling of her eye lashes...say 120 times a minute. I was fascinated watching her talk when her twinklings became expressive add-ons to her feelings. I asked my mom if she was unwell. And she replied caustically that it was a style statement she picked up in her high school and could never get rid of. Of course my mom was against all feminine acquired habits, like shaking legs:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/02/shake-leg.html
But she had her own inherited ones...like talking so fast that visitors used to seek my help:
"What did she say just now?"
"Hmm...that you eat faster than she can serve"
This mannerism of expressive twinkling of eyelids I saw 20 years later in Professor GB who was promoted from an Assistant Professor in Maths to a Full Professor in Physics for reasons to do with lack of vacant posts. I don't think it was a very wise move on his part to accept the shift because he became sort of Trishanku...neither here nor there. He was a Relativist par excellence but once he shifted to Physics he wanted to learn and do QM at the age of 50, trying to become a clone of SDM...of course there was and is only one SDM. And a couple of naughty youngsters used to ask GB profound questions on QM Field Theory and he would start smiling and twinkling like the dickens and say "Excuse me...tomorrow" and take out his ubiquitous scratch-pad from his pocket and laboriously note down the question...and that was verily that...
Then there were these exquisite mannerisms of my elder cousin GVR, a handsome and vivacious boy. Half a dozen of us kids used to sit on the floor on either side making him sort of Chairman on the dining floor so all of us could watch him.
He would sit on the only wooden pita (a 4" high wooden platform) and he would be given the only metal dining plate available...the rest of us sat on the floor and had leaf-plates spread out in front of us. And as soon as the plates are laid out, he would take his metal plate up in his hands and drum out the latest hit film song...he had a talent for drumming. And all of us would laugh our heads off. And the lady-cook would complain to his grannie that it is getting too late for her. And grannie would scold him. Upon which he would lay down his plate and resume his drumming on the sides of his pita. And get scolded and asked to start his meal so we too could follow.
And then he would make faces at the cook, not with his mouth or lips but with his ears...he had the unique ability to shake his ears to and fro, left and right and clockwise and counterclockwise. More and harsher scoldings. And then he would mix his rice with say chutney and start pecking. He would keep narrating the story of the latest hit film, Rojulu Marai, all the time pecking and picking and poking his morsel of rice without making any attempt to eat it. And all of us would listen glued to his facial expressions...he was a born story-teller. Then the complaint would be forwarded to his father, the Shakespeare Uncle, and everyone would fall silent and pretend to slurp...
When I was living in my Shakespeare Uncle's place for my Pre-University year, he used to visit us during his University vacations for a week or so. Then I was dying to know what cricket is, how it is played, and what the rules are. And he would start by naming the fielding positions...slips, gully, third man, square leg and so on pointing them in the air. And when he saw I was getting nowhere, he would get down on the floor, take a chalk and mark them starting with the boundary line, and get lost by the time he came to long-leg since there was no room for it within the boundary he had drawn. And then he would erase the whole damn diagram and restart...we never came to googlies, donkey drops or hook shots...
He would have been an excellent teacher of Physics at IIT KGP...a la Professor GB...
...Posted by Ishani
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Our school books were replete with aphorisms. The two that stuck are:
1. Civilization is what we wear...culture is what we are
2. Manners make a man
Manners are different from mannerisms...like legs are different than arms. Of course for Ogden Nash's Octopus they are not much different:
Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I'd call me Us.
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I'd call me Us.
Rather like the monkey's. Here too her arms suddenly become legs when she scoots.
The first mannerism I watched as a boy was of my eldest cousin's. She had this perpetual twinkling of her eye lashes...say 120 times a minute. I was fascinated watching her talk when her twinklings became expressive add-ons to her feelings. I asked my mom if she was unwell. And she replied caustically that it was a style statement she picked up in her high school and could never get rid of. Of course my mom was against all feminine acquired habits, like shaking legs:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/02/shake-leg.html
But she had her own inherited ones...like talking so fast that visitors used to seek my help:
"What did she say just now?"
"Hmm...that you eat faster than she can serve"
This mannerism of expressive twinkling of eyelids I saw 20 years later in Professor GB who was promoted from an Assistant Professor in Maths to a Full Professor in Physics for reasons to do with lack of vacant posts. I don't think it was a very wise move on his part to accept the shift because he became sort of Trishanku...neither here nor there. He was a Relativist par excellence but once he shifted to Physics he wanted to learn and do QM at the age of 50, trying to become a clone of SDM...of course there was and is only one SDM. And a couple of naughty youngsters used to ask GB profound questions on QM Field Theory and he would start smiling and twinkling like the dickens and say "Excuse me...tomorrow" and take out his ubiquitous scratch-pad from his pocket and laboriously note down the question...and that was verily that...
Then there were these exquisite mannerisms of my elder cousin GVR, a handsome and vivacious boy. Half a dozen of us kids used to sit on the floor on either side making him sort of Chairman on the dining floor so all of us could watch him.
He would sit on the only wooden pita (a 4" high wooden platform) and he would be given the only metal dining plate available...the rest of us sat on the floor and had leaf-plates spread out in front of us. And as soon as the plates are laid out, he would take his metal plate up in his hands and drum out the latest hit film song...he had a talent for drumming. And all of us would laugh our heads off. And the lady-cook would complain to his grannie that it is getting too late for her. And grannie would scold him. Upon which he would lay down his plate and resume his drumming on the sides of his pita. And get scolded and asked to start his meal so we too could follow.
And then he would make faces at the cook, not with his mouth or lips but with his ears...he had the unique ability to shake his ears to and fro, left and right and clockwise and counterclockwise. More and harsher scoldings. And then he would mix his rice with say chutney and start pecking. He would keep narrating the story of the latest hit film, Rojulu Marai, all the time pecking and picking and poking his morsel of rice without making any attempt to eat it. And all of us would listen glued to his facial expressions...he was a born story-teller. Then the complaint would be forwarded to his father, the Shakespeare Uncle, and everyone would fall silent and pretend to slurp...
When I was living in my Shakespeare Uncle's place for my Pre-University year, he used to visit us during his University vacations for a week or so. Then I was dying to know what cricket is, how it is played, and what the rules are. And he would start by naming the fielding positions...slips, gully, third man, square leg and so on pointing them in the air. And when he saw I was getting nowhere, he would get down on the floor, take a chalk and mark them starting with the boundary line, and get lost by the time he came to long-leg since there was no room for it within the boundary he had drawn. And then he would erase the whole damn diagram and restart...we never came to googlies, donkey drops or hook shots...
He would have been an excellent teacher of Physics at IIT KGP...a la Professor GB...
...Posted by Ishani
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