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To continue our vandalisms in the spirit of RKN, instant coffee is a monstrous vandalism to many of my elder generation in South India including perhaps RKN and my Father (and me too). To us coffee means 'filter liquor coffee' as Raman Nair of the Nair Canteen at KGP used to call it. RKN never wrote about instant coffee but I am sure he would have called it by an even worse name, like a 'sacrilege'. But I am sure he would have loved espresso coffee as I too do.
To my Father ball pen was a vandalism and an outrage...he never used one though I gifted him several. To him pen meant a fountain pen...Blackbird...Swan too was sort of ok.
Many tree lovers consider carving love messages on the trunks of trees with pen-knives and blades a horrendous vandalism. But Shakespeare, if I recall right, had this done by Orlando and Rosalind in As You Like It...I have to check. I plead guilty to this fun during my school days. Several of us boys used to carve our names on the soft trunks of cashew trees in our school compound and see them bulge in a few months. We didn't know that trees have feelings and get hurt and bleed in the process.
During the 1980s IIT KGP authorities suddenly woke up to their trees' feelings and banned nailing paper hoardings on tree trunks by students during Gymkhana elections...those were the years of green awakening. Instead they allowed tying threads around tree trunks and hanging posters from them...I guess campus trees loved to be garlanded.
My neighbor (Dr X) at KGP took this a bit too far. We had a dozen jasmine (mogra) plants in our front yard:
These used to sprout buds profusely during May. And, like every South Indian lady, my wife was fond of these buds which used to flower by night and spread their perfume. So she used to pluck them every evening and string them into bunches and send them to her friends who loved them.
One evening Dr X beckoned me to our common fence and shouted at me:
"You people have no sympathy for plants...don't you know that flowers are like children to plants and they weep when you pluck their offspring?"
"No...I don't know...but you do it daily early in the morning...you pluck the jawa phool (hibiscus) in our fence and carry them into your home mumbling some jap-tap!"
"But they are for the GODDESS Kali!!!"
Coming to the world of acads, there are some who consider Convocation a waste. I don't go so far, but I did consider the rented gown and hood combo as a sure vandalism. And pined for the banishment of this joke. My prayers were granted by and by and IIT KGP abolished this practice recently....students can now come in their neat and cheerful dresses befitting the fun moment...they have to wear only a scarf of the right color supplied by IIT round their necks. It uplifted my mood sure.
In my childhood we used to visit Nellore with the prime purpose of watching a train rush by our cousin's home. And trains then had the steam engines of the Victorian Era typified by the Great Train Robbery movie.
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To continue our vandalisms in the spirit of RKN, instant coffee is a monstrous vandalism to many of my elder generation in South India including perhaps RKN and my Father (and me too). To us coffee means 'filter liquor coffee' as Raman Nair of the Nair Canteen at KGP used to call it. RKN never wrote about instant coffee but I am sure he would have called it by an even worse name, like a 'sacrilege'. But I am sure he would have loved espresso coffee as I too do.
To my Father ball pen was a vandalism and an outrage...he never used one though I gifted him several. To him pen meant a fountain pen...Blackbird...Swan too was sort of ok.
Many tree lovers consider carving love messages on the trunks of trees with pen-knives and blades a horrendous vandalism. But Shakespeare, if I recall right, had this done by Orlando and Rosalind in As You Like It...I have to check. I plead guilty to this fun during my school days. Several of us boys used to carve our names on the soft trunks of cashew trees in our school compound and see them bulge in a few months. We didn't know that trees have feelings and get hurt and bleed in the process.
During the 1980s IIT KGP authorities suddenly woke up to their trees' feelings and banned nailing paper hoardings on tree trunks by students during Gymkhana elections...those were the years of green awakening. Instead they allowed tying threads around tree trunks and hanging posters from them...I guess campus trees loved to be garlanded.
My neighbor (Dr X) at KGP took this a bit too far. We had a dozen jasmine (mogra) plants in our front yard:
One evening Dr X beckoned me to our common fence and shouted at me:
"You people have no sympathy for plants...don't you know that flowers are like children to plants and they weep when you pluck their offspring?"
"No...I don't know...but you do it daily early in the morning...you pluck the jawa phool (hibiscus) in our fence and carry them into your home mumbling some jap-tap!"
"But they are for the GODDESS Kali!!!"
Coming to the world of acads, there are some who consider Convocation a waste. I don't go so far, but I did consider the rented gown and hood combo as a sure vandalism. And pined for the banishment of this joke. My prayers were granted by and by and IIT KGP abolished this practice recently....students can now come in their neat and cheerful dresses befitting the fun moment...they have to wear only a scarf of the right color supplied by IIT round their necks. It uplifted my mood sure.
In my childhood we used to visit Nellore with the prime purpose of watching a train rush by our cousin's home. And trains then had the steam engines of the Victorian Era typified by the Great Train Robbery movie.
My heart broke when the steam engine vanished and was replaced by the vandalism called the Diesel engine.
Coming to literary matters, many consider American spellings vandalisms. They can't stand the sight of 'color' and 'humor' and insist that I insert the missing 'u'.
Puns were vandalisms to our Autocrat:
"—Do you mean to say the pun-question is not clearly settled in your
minds? Let me lay down the law upon the subject. Life and language are
alike sacred. Homicide and _verbicide_—that is, violent treatment of a
word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life—are
alike forbidden. Manslaughter, which is the meaning of the one, is the
same as man’s laughter, which is the end of the other. A pun is _primâ
facie_ an insult to the person you are talking with. It implies utter
indifference to or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter how
serious. I speak of total depravity, and one says all that is written on
the subject is deep raving. I have committed my self-respect by talking
with such a person. I should like to commit him, but cannot, because he
is a nuisance. Or I speak of geological convulsions, and he asks me what
was the cosine of Noah’s ark; also, whether the Deluge was not a deal
huger than any modern inundation.
A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were
given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of
the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated
character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide..."
The Ultimate Vandal
For the past couple of weeks my blog is flooded by an Anonymous Commenter who installed a robot to track the word: "Guest" and post his comments inviting readers to buy his tramadol and viagra and stuff like that. Unfortunately my most precious blogs are my half a dozen "Guest Columns". And each of them is now adorned with more than a hundred of these unsolicited comments. And it continues...
I deem the Rambha Putra who is doing this mischief to me the Ultimate Vandal...
...Posted by Ishani
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