Parsimony (kanjusi)

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కలిమిగల లోభికన్నను 

విలసితముగ పేద మేలు వితరిణియైనన్

చలి చెలమ  మేలుగాదా  

కులనిధి యంబోధికన్న గువ్వల చెన్నా !

Meaning: Better than a wealthy kanjusi is a generous poor soul. Like a well of cool water is better than a sea of salt water.

By the way, that verse is in the prosody (Chandas) known as "kanda padyam" in Telugu. When I re-read that verse five years back, I was so charmed that I learned its weird prosody and wrote more than 3000 fun-verses in that; most of them in the Sankarabharanam (శంకరాభరణం) blog; and the rest in my own blog under the title: "Sankararpanam" (శంకరార్పణం) in homage to Sri Kandi Shankarayya garu to whom I dedicated my latest Ishani Booklet:

"The Little World of Ishani & Other Stories"

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Parsimony there refers to miserliness in money, a topic that has been flogged to  death till it has become a dead horse by now.

So let us not talk about money, a filthy subject.

Let us instead talk about Praise (or the lack of it).

If you want to read real praise you have to go to our Vedas, in particular, the first one, Rigveda.

All sorts of Deities and Nature are praised there heaps upon heaps in the most enchanting Sanskrit (that is why they are called 'Vedic Chants' :)

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote this verse:

"They reckon ill that leave me out;

When me they fly, I am the wings;

I am the doubter and the doubt, 

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings"

One day in 2009, I recalled the Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra that my father taught me , uttered while smearing vibhuti (sacred ash) on our foreheads and shoulders, in the beginning of the Sandhyavandanam.

ॐ त्र्यम्‍बकं यजामहे सुगन्धिं पुष्टिवर्धनम् उर्वारुकमिव बन्‍धनान् मृत्‍योर्मुक्षीय मामृतात्

My mother had mentioned long back that there is a cucumber (of all things) in that sacred mantra. Since I don't know Sanskrit, I asked my fond sambandhi, a Telugu Pandit, for its meaning. He at once left in search of an authentic text having that mantra and returned a couple of hours later with this book that he gifted me:

"సస్వర వేద మంత్రాలు" (Vedic Chants with tonal ideograms).

I read that book again and again and liked it so much that I traveled to the Ramakrishna Mission Bookshop in Domalguda and bought half a dozen copies and distributed them to my near and dear (watch out for typos though).

Not only in Hinduism but also in Christianity is prevalent this praise-culture. In our Chandanagar roads I see an occasional auto rickshaw with this injunction written on its back cover in bold letters:

"Praise the Lord!"

But there is a difference:

Christian Lord dwells in His Remote Heaven.

But the ultimate Hindu God is within the hearts of all of us:

अहमात्मा गुडाकेश सर्वभूताशयस्थितः।

अहमादिश्च मध्यं च भूतानामन्त एव च।।

So Hindus praising their Lord is in fact "Self-Praise"...the best of the lot.

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My father has ever been a praise-kanjoos. Here is a typical dialogue between him and his dear wife:

"When the curry has a little excess salt, you complain bitterly. But when it is tasty, you never praise it"

"If you find me eating your curry without complaining, that implies it is tasty...no need of further praise"

In 1962, I was in my father's home in Kovur during my summer vacation. One fine morning in the first batch of posts there arrived a post-card from my uncle at Vizagh saying that I stood first in the University in the final 4-year BSc (Hons), giving the marks breakup...phew!

Father was the first to read it. And then he closed his eyes in prayer to his Lord and passed that post card on to me. Not a single word of praise to poor me...all his praise was  reserved to his Lord...

And so, it was very tough for me to praise him...he was known as the best Headmaster and English Teacher in the Nellore District.  I often wanted to praise him but always felt embarrassed...praise is easy if it is mutual...MSMA (Member Society of Mutual Admiration...Oliver Wendell Holmes). 

https://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/11/m-s-m.html

In 1958, I was living in the home of my eldest paternal uncle, Sri GV Subbaramayya, known as "Nellore Shakespeare". He was then the Principal of the PBN College, Nidubrole, where I was doing my Pre-University. And he was our English Lecturer. 

One fine morning he was sitting in his Home-Office Room and marking our Quarterly Exam Scripts. And he called his daughter, Alagamma (senior to me by 3 years) inside while I was lounging in the Hall.

In two minutes Alagamma reverted to the Hall and shook my hands congratulating me:

"Babayya showed me your answer script. It was flawless...not a single correction. You got the highest marks among 120 students"

"How many marks?"

"52"

That was the culture of  our Language Teachers then (Telugu, Hindi and English). Never a First Class...GVS himself was the proud recipient of what he called a "High Second Class" from the Christian College in Madras circa 1920 :)

Marks Kanjusi.

But I knew he liked to be praised. 

In 1964 he was in Vizagh on an official trip and stayed at our humble 2-room tenement for the night.

And after dinner he asked me to read his latest book aloud for him: "Love's Fulfilment and Other Poems"

I did it at once heaping high praise on each and every poem,

Next morning when was leaving he handed me a crisp Hundred Rupee Note...much welcome!

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At IIT KGP, I quickly discovered that my students were far better than me and so used to heap praises on them whenever they deserved...praise costs nothing and is inexhaustible unlike money.

But one has to be subtle when praising girls...it is tricky.

There was this Lateral Entry girl, Arundhuti Chattopadhyaya. She did her BSc (Hons) from the Presidency College, Calcutta, and so had a wee chip on her shoulder. Nice girl though. And she shifted to IIT KGP for her 2-year MSc. And I happened to be taking their 4th year Relativity Lecture Class and Lab.

In the Lab I found her always quarreling bitterly with her new classmates who had already had 3 years of IIT under their belt. I guessed that she wanted to be praised but no one was praising her.

One day in my Relativity Lecture Class I got to write on our green board midway a slightly intricate function which needed differentiation. As was my custom,  after writing that function, I sat down on my chair facing the students asking them to do the calculus. 

And Arundhuti turned out to be the first to jump up and run to me with the correct derivation and answer in her khata.

I got my chance and said:

"Good!"

That was all...she blushed pink and never fought with any of her classmates then on.

A decade later she landed up at the Stanford Medical School helping manufacture MRI Scans...(using a topic I had taught them in their next semester...self-praise :)

I see that she is now Arundhuti Ganguly, CTO & COO of a Medical Imaging Company at San Jose, California.;

https://www.linkedin.com/in/arundhuti-ganguly

"Dear Sir

Wow!..... Words fail me (though they usually don't).... While my company profits from cancer and its attempted cure, it is still a disease we deeply respect. You had mentioned Auntie's earlier diagnosis but I never knew it had regressed so much. Anyway, ... I'm very sure she's in a good place as kind souls like her deserve to be. I'm pretty certain she would be most peaceful only if you are keeping your health and your chin up. Keep blogging."

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2012/06/celebrating-death.html

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