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They say that the invention of agriculture is the first Revolution in the history of mankind. Land was fertile then and all you had to do was just to throw some grains of rice, go home, write poetry, draw pictures, or gather wool at Harrys; and return after four months, harvest the bounteous yield and you are free for the next year or so to indulge in your hobbies.
Then on it was a problem how to spend so much time that you now have at your disposal. And Galileo looked at the skies with his telescope and science was born. It is a different matter that they were all not Galileos and so some other equally absorbing activities had to be invented.
Nor was everyone a Valmiki or Shakespeare or da Vinci to spend their ample leisure in literature or arts.
In our childhood there was this foldable wooden thing like a giant specs case. On opening it, the two identical halves reveal 7 holes each. You put four dried tamarind seeds in each hole and the two opponents face each other and start playing like chess or any other board game. Lots of rules are there in redistributing the seeds serially and 'killing' the opponent's seeds and pocketing them till all the seeds are taken away.
But this game is played by two.
When you are left like Sita imprisoned under a tree in Sri Lanka for a whole year there is a variant of this box game which can be played like Solitaire...distribute the 28 seeds on each side in the pattern 7, 6. 5. ... and 'go' till you get back the original distribution. It takes a whole hour to achieve this...this game is indeed known in our households as: "Sita's Solitaire'.
For most retired folks, what to do with time that suddenly starts hanging heavily in their shoulder bags is a big problem.
There is a chap in Sydney by name Robert Evans. In his youth he was a Church Official. After retirement he found a strange hobby...he spends whole nights hunting for supernovae using a 'kitchen-sink' telescope fitted on his roof. And goes about hunting for his superfish one moonless night after the other.
Bill Bryson likens his feat this way: Imagine 1500 or more dining tables with black covers. Take a handful of salt and throw them at random on each table. The grains of salt represent the resident stars in 1500 galaxies. Now add one extra grain of salt on any one table. That represents a supernova. Evans has the gift of spotting that single salt grain as an intruder. He has spotted a whopping 36 supernovae till early 2003.
Says he:
"I just seem to have a knack for memorizing star fields...I'm not particularly good at other things...I don't remember names well..."
"Or where he's put things"
says his wife from her kitchen.
A harmless absorbing hobby with no thought of minting money with it.
My Shakespeare Uncle had his own way of spending his retirement. He was a widower living alone in Nellore. He had mastered at least 4 languages: Telugu, Tamil, Sanskrit and English. He decided to translate the whole of Telugu Mahabharat into English blank verse. He would write with a pen on a sheaf of khata-sized white papers.
One day his eldest son, who was an Officer in the GSI, Calcutta, came down to KGP to look me up. And he was moaning that his dad would post him every Monday his week's output and asks him to get the material typed, and re-send him the typescripts. He says:
"Father thinks that I have a pool of underemployed typists who would do the job free for me...The one typist in our office bunks most of the time on the plea that she developed morning sickness every other month, followed by miscarriage. And I have to get my official jobs done by an unemployed typist from the pool."
I asked him what he did with his dad's terrific weekly output. He moaned:
"That is why I came down from Cal to KGP...lend me urgently Rs 200...the job typist wants his fees tomorrow...or else..."
My Father was proudly announcing to one and all that his eldest brother was translating Mahabharat into English in blank verse...till they came down on him for a donation of a whopping Rs 2000 towards the posthumous publication of the English Mahabharat.
This Shakespeare Uncles' nephew is less demanding...he keeps blogging by the night absolutely free; and it is only occasionally that he gets a few of his blogs printed...but what is IIT KGP pension for if not for desisting from bugging his wife, son, D-i-L and his kid 24/7?
The Robert Evans' quote above is taken from Bill Bryson's whale of a book called: "A Short History of Nearly Everything", which has this dedication:
There was a time when I used to read...no longer though!
...Posted by Ishani
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Then on it was a problem how to spend so much time that you now have at your disposal. And Galileo looked at the skies with his telescope and science was born. It is a different matter that they were all not Galileos and so some other equally absorbing activities had to be invented.
Nor was everyone a Valmiki or Shakespeare or da Vinci to spend their ample leisure in literature or arts.
In our childhood there was this foldable wooden thing like a giant specs case. On opening it, the two identical halves reveal 7 holes each. You put four dried tamarind seeds in each hole and the two opponents face each other and start playing like chess or any other board game. Lots of rules are there in redistributing the seeds serially and 'killing' the opponent's seeds and pocketing them till all the seeds are taken away.
But this game is played by two.
When you are left like Sita imprisoned under a tree in Sri Lanka for a whole year there is a variant of this box game which can be played like Solitaire...distribute the 28 seeds on each side in the pattern 7, 6. 5. ... and 'go' till you get back the original distribution. It takes a whole hour to achieve this...this game is indeed known in our households as: "Sita's Solitaire'.
For most retired folks, what to do with time that suddenly starts hanging heavily in their shoulder bags is a big problem.
There is a chap in Sydney by name Robert Evans. In his youth he was a Church Official. After retirement he found a strange hobby...he spends whole nights hunting for supernovae using a 'kitchen-sink' telescope fitted on his roof. And goes about hunting for his superfish one moonless night after the other.
Bill Bryson likens his feat this way: Imagine 1500 or more dining tables with black covers. Take a handful of salt and throw them at random on each table. The grains of salt represent the resident stars in 1500 galaxies. Now add one extra grain of salt on any one table. That represents a supernova. Evans has the gift of spotting that single salt grain as an intruder. He has spotted a whopping 36 supernovae till early 2003.
Says he:
"I just seem to have a knack for memorizing star fields...I'm not particularly good at other things...I don't remember names well..."
"Or where he's put things"
says his wife from her kitchen.
A harmless absorbing hobby with no thought of minting money with it.
My Shakespeare Uncle had his own way of spending his retirement. He was a widower living alone in Nellore. He had mastered at least 4 languages: Telugu, Tamil, Sanskrit and English. He decided to translate the whole of Telugu Mahabharat into English blank verse. He would write with a pen on a sheaf of khata-sized white papers.
One day his eldest son, who was an Officer in the GSI, Calcutta, came down to KGP to look me up. And he was moaning that his dad would post him every Monday his week's output and asks him to get the material typed, and re-send him the typescripts. He says:
"Father thinks that I have a pool of underemployed typists who would do the job free for me...The one typist in our office bunks most of the time on the plea that she developed morning sickness every other month, followed by miscarriage. And I have to get my official jobs done by an unemployed typist from the pool."
I asked him what he did with his dad's terrific weekly output. He moaned:
"That is why I came down from Cal to KGP...lend me urgently Rs 200...the job typist wants his fees tomorrow...or else..."
My Father was proudly announcing to one and all that his eldest brother was translating Mahabharat into English in blank verse...till they came down on him for a donation of a whopping Rs 2000 towards the posthumous publication of the English Mahabharat.
This Shakespeare Uncles' nephew is less demanding...he keeps blogging by the night absolutely free; and it is only occasionally that he gets a few of his blogs printed...but what is IIT KGP pension for if not for desisting from bugging his wife, son, D-i-L and his kid 24/7?
The Robert Evans' quote above is taken from Bill Bryson's whale of a book called: "A Short History of Nearly Everything", which has this dedication:
To Professor G. P. Sastry
For being an inspiring Teacher
And a wonderful mentor.
With respect, admiration
and
Thanks
Supratim
July, 2005
There was a time when I used to read...no longer though!
...Posted by Ishani
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