Cats & Dogs

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For this post I promised myself that I won't Google.

As a rule, I open Google and my online-Webster in separate Windows while I compose. It always felt like I was cheating.

But not today, because I want to be honest with myself and write only from my personal experience and from my reading.

I think dogs have dominated the pet-space overwhelmingly to the practical exclusion of cats.

I never had pets, apart from books.

Thurber is the Dog-Man of English Literature (Mark Twain called himself the Cat-Man). He had more than 40 dogs while the going was good. I guess he drew a thousand sketches of his dogs, some couple of hundred or more of which were published.

I just broke my promise, I hope, just this once.

Here is his own blurb for his book: "The Dog Department":

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"On the lawns and porches, and in the living rooms and backyards of my threescore years, there have been more dogs, written and drawn, real and imaginary, than I had guessed before I started this roundup."

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I don't think there was ever such a famous book like: "The Cat Department".

First I learned that cat could be a pet was from Alice, in "Through the Looking Glass", where I read that cats give baths to their kittens.

That cats can be clean I learned from my own experience:

While I was living alone in the spacious Qrs C1-97, it was so hot and humid that I used to keep all the windows open, even when I went out.

Late one night I entered my bedroom, picked up a book from my built-in wardrobe which doubled as book-case, shut the wardrobe tight, and went to bed with the book on my belly after switching off my table-lamp.

A couple of hours later I was woken up by a scratching sound by my table-lamp; and a soft barely audible 'meow' coming from inside the wardrobe. I switched on the lamp and was staring at a big snow-white cat I recognized from the neighborhood. She was looking at me and the wardrobe... and the wardrobe and me... I could guess that I had imprisoned her offspring. I got out and softly opened its door. The cat jumped in and cuddled a single snow-white days-old kitten.

And she was staring at me as if challenging what was my next move.

I shifted myself quietly to the Hall and slept on the floor for the night.

In our Tea Club next morning I was narrating this incident and Nepu-da, our senior-most colleague, at once predicted that I would be getting married within a year; and advised me to leave mother and child alone and wait for her to take the next step.

I did that scrupulously (marriage was at stake!). She was tending to her kitten with great love and care; and there was not a single occasion when I had stench or had to clean that wardrobe. She was fastidiously clean with her kitten, I couldn't guess how.

After a fortnight when I returned from the Department one day to have a peek at my honored guests, I found they just vanished leaving no trace.

Nepu-da was right: I did get married within a year to a lady who is equally allergic to cats and mice.

The other day in our Hyderabad home she was complaining that a lone mouse was running helter-skelter and damaging her equanimity; and a cat was hounding her, visiting her kitchen whenever the door was ajar and cleaning her milk vessel. Next morning when my wife was chastising me for forgetting to close the kitchen door, I joked that I did that deliberately so that her pet cat could peep in and catch her pet mouse.

She flung the spoon in her hand at me (to the great merriment of her maid) and said that 'cats and mice' nowadays are bosom friends, with her as their common enemy: the very 'Tom & Jerry'.

El Nino's 8-year-old daughter, the Red Duchess, has a pet-cat whose hilarious ride on her dad's car make for an entire Chapter: "Moving a cat in the car" in The House that Nino Built.

My colleague SNB had about half a dozen cats and kittens in his Qrs. I asked him why. He replied that he watches them play for hours on end and enjoys it. He also said that his Tom Cat saved his wife from a cobra, killing it just before she entered her kitchen. I knew that mongoose was the natural enemy of cobra and witnessed roadshows in my village, where a pet mongoose and a pet cobra displayed their fighting skills (the show was shut down just before the mongoose killed the cobra....it was always the mongoose that won).

Dalia (whose Electrodynamics Class Notes I stole and used as my breadboard) had about a couple of dozen cats and their kittens as well as half a dozen dogs as her pets.

I asked her if they didn't attack each other.

She said, since she looked after all of them with equal affection, they treat one another as siblings (quite unlike India & Pakistan).

Perhaps this is about the only time cats and dogs were on an equal footing; other than: "It is raining cats & dogs".


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Passion & Humor

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During the course of the past three years of my mind-numbing blogging I have been accused and implicated of harboring:

1. Passion and 2. Humor.

I would like to firmly respond to these baseless charges one by one as their meanings occur in my online-Webster:

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Definition of PASSION

1. Webster:

a : "the sufferings of Christ between the night of the Last Supper and his death"

gps: Ok! I WAS suffering occasionally when I was crucified at IIT KGP when applying for PF loans on hilarious grounds like celebrating the impending marriages of 6 of my 'dependent' sisters a couple of dozen times in various permutations and combinations as and when I fell short of money for buying the classy products of WD & HO Wills; but that's about all the Passion I displayed at KGP. But not after retirement, for, they cleared all my PF money so I can't pester them for loans anymore.



b : Webster:

"an oratorio based on a gospel narrative of the Passion"

gps: The only oratory I indulged in at KGP was on Dirac Equation since I didn't understand it. On Maxwell Equations, I didn't have to, because I knew them like the back of my palm, having done a Ph D in this subject under SDM (about whom I am accused by Anupam of being "passionate" in my SDM Homage)

"gps lemma: The less one knows of a subject, the more eloquent one is"

2 Webster:

"obsolete : suffering"

gps: I don't think I am obsolete enough now; maybe later (at 100) I will respond to this

3 Webster:

"the state or capacity of being acted on by external agents or forces"

gps: Is there anyone not in the state of being acted on by external agents or forces like the wife and kids; why me alone?

4 Webster:

a (1) :

"emotion passion is greed"

gps: Hyderabadi Super-Malls wink and blink constantly with neon signs saying: 'Greed is Good! Greed is Good!! Greed is Good!!!'... Not poor me, who gives those Malls a quiet miss

(2) Webster:

"plural : the emotions as distinguished from reason"

gps: Anyone defending himself this logically and reasoningly can't be accused of emotions, plural or 'singular'

b : Webster:

"intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction"

gps: However intensely or with overmastering feeling I try to drive, my jalopy doesn't go beyond 30 kmph. And I have so far escaped 'conviction' on this ground

c : Webster:

"an outbreak of anger"

gps: Ha! Outbreak of Anger!!! In our childhood, when there were no home-toilets, we used to morning-walk to the Village Tank for our primary ablutions. The motto was: "What is the use of getting angry with the Tank; you will only stink!"

5 Webster:

a : "ardent affection"

gps: Few can accuse me of 'ardent affection' to anyone but myself, which is so far 'unrequited'.


: Webster:

"love b : a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept"

gps: Whoever lived in the Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP for seven breezy years will surely have 'a strong liking or desire for or devotion to' decent food once in a while, Other passions pale before what our 'aalu had for gobi' (as I wrote to SPK yesterday) since we were ever served 'aalu-gobi' for lunch and 'gobi-aalu' for dinner on a regular basis in their Mess, except on special dinner nights when both of them loved a bit of 'mattar and paneer'

Webster:

c : "sexual desire"

gps: Can we keep this CLEAN please!

Webster:

d : "an object of desire or deep interest"

gps: I was hardly an object of desire or deep interest to anyone so far as I know. It is not MY problem

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Definition of HUMOR

1 Webster:

a : "a normal functioning bodily semifluid or fluid (as the blood or lymph)"

gps: I am neither 'bloody' nor 'lymphatic'; only 'emphatic'


b : Webster:

"a secretion (as a hormone) that is an excitant of activity"

gps: Again, let this be clean!

2 Webster:

a: "in medieval physiology : a fluid or juice of an animal or plant; specifically : one of the four fluids entering into the constitution of the body and determining by their relative proportions a person's health and temperament"

gps: Let medieval physiology with its fluids and juices of animals or plants go to medieval dogs! I don't care

b : Webster:

"characteristic or habitual disposition or bent : temperament humor"

gps: I am not 'bent'; I am straight!


c : Webster:

"an often temporary state of mind imposed especially by circumstances; humor to listen"

gps: Everything in this world is temporary

d : Webster:

"a sudden, unpredictable, or unreasoning inclination : whim humors of nature"

gps: I have been consistently sordid in my 380 blogposts so far; nothing sudden or unpredictable or unreasoning inclination: 3 long years can't be dubbed 'sudden'

3 Webster:

a : "that quality which appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous"

gps: Big words! I have to check with my online Webster in a different window

b : Webster:

"the mental faculty of discovering, expressing, or appreciating the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous"

gps: More of the above; 'mental' in Midnapore means 'gone case', which I swear I am not yet

c : Webster:

"something that is or is designed to be comical or amusing"

gps: What's wrong with THAT?

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(HNB) Elasticity + (gps) Surface Tension

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Mid-1970s: Raman Auditorium: HNB [who recruited and gave me all my (undeserved) promotions] in the front bench:

The Farewell Function for the outgoing students was on swimmingly.

The outgoing students bragged about being 'brutally frank' in their criticism of Physics Teaching (like those brahmins who burned their boat after crossing that river).

They were unanimous that teaching was 'ok type'; but one after another were accusing their teachers of setting such routine, easy, and un-challenging Question Papers that the 'spectrum of their genius hierarchy ' was not truly reflected in their Transcripts.

HNB, himself by far the best teacher (see the link to the Tribune article by Dharam Vir IAS below) but also an easy target of this accusation, smiled and looked back at his army of teachers.

None responded.

Next year I happened to be the Wave Optics Teacher for the new first years. We then had a nascent semester system but without grades yet; marks in decimal system (with glorious fractions doled out by unrelenting teachers) were still being displayed in all their beauty on their Transcripts. The midsem Paper was for 80 marks. And the endsem for 120 marks, making up a total of 200 marks for each subject, totaling about 1500 marks including Lab and Grand Viva.

As a rule I set easy midsem Question Papers so that, with less than half the course covered, students can score well and relax; and I can relax in Summer Vacation without Summer Quarter and Supples.

The endsem paper would tease out the 'VIBGYOR spectrum'.

For setting the endsem Paper I walked into the Central Library and picked up the only available copy of Ditchburn, a text book on Light with a difference. And made up 15 short-answer questions, all of them testing the basic concepts of Wave Optics via their applications (like Young's Eriometer, Searle's Young's Modulus Setup, Cornu's Elliptical & Hyperbolic Fringes etc). Each question carried 10 marks, totaling 150 marks. Students could answer as many questions as they wished in any order that suited them. All marks they get here and there would be added up, with an upper-bound cut-off at 120.

When the cattle came home, it turned out all of them were scoring between 15 and 20 (a bloodbath) except one dark horse 'N', who surprised me by scoring 60 out of 120.

I was moved. And as everyone knows, I am the kindest of all, to a fault, after HNB.

Clearly all students, good, better and best, expected Essay Questions from the third-previous year and took it easy the night before their endsem Optics Exam.

I didn't know how to get out of the bog of my own making (remember we gave marks, not grades, and so could be challenged easily).

I straight walked into HNB's Office and narrated my predicament.

HNB smiled but asked me to show him my endsem Question Paper.

There..there..is the BEST HoD at his wisest!!! I fetched the damn thing, and, he read it back and forth and back and forth and took my Viva on each question.

After he satisfied himself that the thing WAS too challenging for the first year kids, asked me what I wished to do about it.

I replied that the best script should get the full marks: 120. And so I would like to add 60 on each script wholesale, not pro rata as per convention.

He smiled and asked me to go ahead. I then asked him how we would defend this grace-en-masse.

He reeled out his dictum: "When the questions are as hard as diamond, even the attempt is like carborundum".

So, everyone was baffled and happy, and then on, their seniors were careful in their Farewell Functions.

The dark horse 'N' met me early in his Second Year and sought my blessings. I asked him what for. He said he was quitting IIT KGP. I was stunned and asked him where he was going. He said he got admission into the Railway Engineering College at Jamalpur.

I knew all about it. They used to conduct the toughest Competitive Entrance Exam after Class XII, much tougher than JEE and IAS then. For, they had only 60 seats, unlike the 1000 of IIT JEE or 300 or so of IFS, IAS and the Central Services

Those who cleared it were given free food, accommodation in their hostel and pocket money to boot, for 4 years. Thereafter they were absorbed as Engineers in the Welfare State of the Indian Railways and never looked back. Sky is the limit....if you make your mark, you could step right into the coveted Railway Board. You would then have your own salon, which was attached to any desired train of the Indian Railways, with family, cook, and orderly perhaps.

But there was this Catch: they didn't give you a Degree after 4 long years at Jamalpur. With good reason: you can't get out of the Indian Railways to which you were bound hand and foot till you retired or died (in one of those Railway accidents) whichever is earlier as per rules.

I congratulated 'N' and we parted.

A couple of decades later, when I was gathering wool (now dubbed "lateral thinking") on the cement bench at Harry's, a Railway vehicle stopped by and a middle-aged 'N' walked up, and asked if I remembered him.

Of course (those 120 marks!).

He said he was doing rather well in the Railways, but wanted to do an MBA abroad to beat his other competitors. He got admission at Chicago, and Railways agreed to sponsor him.

But there was this other Catch.

Since he didn't have any Degree, but an unvalidated one-year stint at IIT KGP, Chicago wanted his Dean-Certified Transcripts for that missing year. That explained his visit to IIT KGP. He met the AR, who asked him to get lost because he didn't have the manpower to retrieve 20-year-old 'Dead-Sea-Scrolls' from the attic for an absconder who ran away without clearing his dues and getting a 'No-Dues Certificate'.

'N' was forlorn that his Chicago MBA was in jeopardy: "Between the Cup & the Lip".

I always had cordial relations with the Academic Section; Tapan-da in particular.

So I asked 'N' to relax in his Officer's Club Guest House for the night and fall on the feet of the AR next day sharp at noon.

Which he did. And got his 'Dean-Certified Transcripts' for his missing year (with 180 marks in Optics) as well as the obligatory 'No-Dues Certificate'.

He had of course to pay (through his Railway's Nose?) his Mess Dues, Library Dues, Gymkhana and other Dues with compounded interest, and 'retrieval chrages', making my poor IIT that much richer.

I guess he is now riding our 'Palace on Wheels' in his mini-salon, if not in a full-blown one.

Kids will be KIDS!!!

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Here is the link to the Tribune Article by Dharam Vir IAS:

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030322/windows/main3.htm


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Marbles & Blocks

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On reading a diluted copykitty blogpost a couple of months back, SPK accused me grievously of 'clever trimming'. This, after enjoying my 'Seven Ages of (a Lying) Man', in which I stuck so honestly to the pristine Truth that it bounced from The Statesman.

I took the opportunity to at once go to the Archies Outlet at Ameerpet, and selected a precious gift item (a crystal plaque on which was etched: "Best Teacher") for him, and advised Mrs SPK not to show it to him, thus ensuring that she showed it to him prompto.

Now, I get this dismaying mail from him:

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"...I'm now getting a little confused like Nino's wife, Margharita, which one is `gul': SDM examiner, SDM debarred as examiner, you answering 2 questions, you getting 40% marks or girls getting 80% marks, (there is no doubt that ` the girls taking extra sheets and writing for more than 3 hours' is an absolute truth)..."

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My short answer is that ALL of them are EQUALLY true.

I thought that we stopped asking such questions almost a century ago: "Light is waves or particles?". We all know that on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when we work in the Classical Optics Lab it is waves; and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays when we work in the Quantum Optics Lab it is particles. And on Sundays we do masti and couldn't care (today happens to be a Sunday).

He also affirms that Truth is like useless pure gold, while a 10% admixture with gul copper makes it ornamental gold.

There was this unknown handsome upcountry chap from a far-off land who falls in love with that village brahmin girl and proposes to her. She readily welcomes it since he didn't demand any dowry except a gold chain. He looked so charming and bright that the father of the girl is convinced that the groom must be a brahmin.

While the goldsmith is working in the verandah on his gold chain, the groom tells his would-be pop-in-law that his goldsmith is a cheat and is palming off 14 carat gold onto him. The pop-in-law goes out and confronts the goldsmith who admits that he was cheating; but warns the brahmin dad that his would-be-son-in-law is no brahmin at all but comes from the goldsmith caste, for, none but a born goldsmith can figure out that his gold is fake just by listening to the sound of a few hits on his anvil.

SPK is no goldsmith. He is in truth (again) a brahmin hailing from the East Godavari District where every other chap claims to be a famous Vedic Pundit.

In the fantastic movie 'Great Train Robbery' there is this lovely scene where Leslie is fed up with the prevarications of Sean and asks him the blunt question: "Do you ever tell the Truth?" to which strange question, Sean demurs and stutters: "Truth,...truth...; No".

Bertrand Russell would love this conundrum: if Sean never tells the Truth, then his above answer also must also be a lie, proving that he does tell the Truth once in a while, say 10% which so pleases SPK.

Let me now once and for all clear my relation with Truth by quoting my Autocrat:

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"The spheres (Lies) are the most
convenient things in the world;
they roll with the least possible
impulse just where the child would
have them.The cubes (Truth) will not
roll at all; they have a great talent
for standing still, and always
keep right side up.

But very soon the young philosopher
finds that things which roll so easily
are very apt to roll into the wrong
corner, and to get out of his way
when he most wants them, while he
always knows where to find the others,
which stay where they are left.
Thus he learns--thus we learn--to
drop the streaked and speckled globes
of falsehood and to hold fast the white
angular blocks of truth. But then comes
Timidity, and after her Good-nature,
and last of all Polite-behavior, all
insisting that Truth must ROLL, or nobody
can do anything with it; and so the first
with her coarse rasp, and the second with
her broad file, and the third with
her silken sleeve, do so round off
and smooth and polish the snow-white
cubes of Truth, that, when they have
got a little dingy by use, it becomes
hard to tell them from the rolling
spheres of falsehood."

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How TRUE?

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Copykittens

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This post is a sequel to the two earlier posts: "Copycats" and "Going..Going...Gone":

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Kedar writes:

"I did not copy during the exams at KGP 'technically', but I would say that knowing the pool of questions beforehand may come close to it. I remember one instance. This was in the 9th Semester during DB's course. I really enjoyed the class, however, writing the end-semester examination is never easy, especially when your class-notes have high information density on every page and ZERO doodles (a rare case in my KGP notes). Myself and Aniket were having dinner in the RP hall mess the evening before the exam and were feeling a little overwhelmed.

RP being very close to the library, we took a stroll there after dinner and had a look at some question papers (both mid-term and end-term !!) from previous years that were kept in the reference section. We did not quite solve the papers but certainly discussed some problems that seemed interesting. This trip proved to be rewarding for obvious reasons. DB was all praise for us for scoring very high, but I never had the courage to tell him about this trip to the central library on the eve of the exam. I don't think that the 'interesting' problems were unsolvable, but the element of surprise was gone. If I had not thought about them beforehand, I am not sure if I could have done that well in the exam within the 3 hours time."
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gps: Kedar was only doing what was expected of him. So, he is hereby absolved of all charges of 'copying', rather!

In our University at Waltair, the Official Outlet was selling on the Day of our Registration: (1) Syllabus (2) The prescribed text books (3) Question Papers of the last 5 years.

And then it is upto you to face the Exam. There was no attendance rule; please yourself. And our seniors used to pass on (sell) their 'prepared' essays, which they were inheriting for the last quarter of a century from their seniors. (I used to attend all classes religiously and prepare my own essays {;-})

And if you prepared well, you were sure to walk away with a First or High Second Class.

Only I was the most unfortunate chap. When it came to my batch, unfortunately SDM happened to be the external paper-setter (as I came to know later). They tried him this once and 'deleted' him from their list of paper-setters forever.

In our M Sc there was only one paper of QM. (In Indra's time there were 5: QM 0, QM 1, QM 2, QM 3, Advanced QM). There were only 16 Questions in our Bank out of which 8 were to be selected by the paper-setter. By permutations, combinations and probability rules, we prepared for 5 Questions from the Bank to be 'choiced' by us.

SDM neither looked at the Syllabus, nor the Question Bank, but set 8 questions based on his Calcutta and Cambrige University khata.

With the result that only 2 turned out to be the ones prepared by all 22 of us. The others were queer stuff like: "Write an essay depicting the similarities between Geometrical & Physical Optics on the one hand and Classical & Quantum Mechanics on the other".

Since I was ever chaste, I walked out of the Hall after one hour (out of 3) writing just my essays for the 2 Questions we prepared. But found that the two girls of our batch asked for extra time and extra loose sheets and got them too! We asked them how they could write for 3 hours. They said that they 'attempted' all the 8 questions and wrote whatever they knew; like Young's Double Slit in Optics and Inclined Plane in Classical Mechanics.

And there was this Board Meeting in which SDM was 'debarred'. They decided that whoever 'attempted' any question would get full marks (grace) on the lofty principle of HNB (another story for another blog): "When the question is like a Diamond, even the 'attempt' is like Carborundum".

The girls got 80% and the rest of us 40%. Still, God is There, and the very same HNB interviewed me and took me in at that Heaven called IIT KGP (serves them right: they got married and did more inventive Physics in CSIR Labs).

I was reminded of the story where this Class IX student prepared only the essay on Neem Tree but got Cow in the exam. He wrote that he was taking his morning walk the Meadow and saw a Cow tethered to a Neem Tree; and how beautiful was the Neem Tree, and how useful: Neem Toothpaste, Margo Soap, Neem Oil, and of course Small Pox for which Neem leaves were the only palliative.

He got 90% for his inventive essay-writing abilities (not ME!!!).

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'V' writes: The 12 grad-students of his batch were sure that they would flunk in this Professor's Exam which was well-known to be tough. And so they were looking out for Admissions for other Grad Schools.

But it so happened (these things do happen) that the Seniormost of that Professor's Post-Docs fell down from his scooter (I guess one of these 12 was responsible, though not deliberately). All the dirty dozen jumped on him, admitted him to the Nursing Home and nursed him for one whole month like those Mother Teresa Angels.

And this very same Post-Doc turned out to be the Invigilator and acceded to their request that the Closed Book exam be converted into an Open Book one. But they were all too scared to 'open' their books (for they found that the Invigilator was 'invigilating' seriously). Miraculously however they all passed with very high marks (the Professor having perhaps outsourced his 'paper-correction' to the very same Post-Doc).

I am reminded of the Panchatantra (or was it Aesop) Fable in which this Lion King was sleeping and Jerry thought it was a marble statue and was crawling up and down it. Lion King woke up and held Jerry in his palm and was inspecting curiously. Jerry was quivering but promised that he would help Lion King in future if he was let go. Lion King guffawed and loved the gumption of Jerry and let him go.

A month later, this Hunter spread this Net and went for lunch and Lion King promptly walked into it, which closed upon him. And Jerry came and snapped the strings of the Net phuta-phut and let Lion King run away scot-free.

Jerry passed his Qualifiers in flying colors.

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Note that both Kedar & 'V' were just careful enough to be on this side of the sin-border-line.

I guess they are being too sparse with Truth unlike me.

So, let us call them: "Copykittens"
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Going..Going...Gone!

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This is a sequel to my previous post: "Copycats"

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The last sentence of that post reads:

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"I had never been a student at KGP except for one paper in Complex Variables for my Ph D qualifiers. How I copied in the midsem and endsem exams of that paper, I will sell, but not blog for free.

Any takers?"


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Within minutes I got this mail from Saswat:

Dear Sir,

Is it an invitation for bids in your latest blog :) , because I will be happy to. Let the bids start!

My bid: $20 ( this is around what PRL charges per article)

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gps: No, Saswat, I don't deal in Money. It wasn't 'bidding', but the 'queue discipline' (an Industrial Management Jargon) is: 'First Come First Serve'.

So, you get to know my secret technique.

But before you read this on, promise me that you would compose an 'original' (no copycat here) limerick on gps and post it as a 'Comment' on this blog.

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Here is the lowdown:

'R' (for Ramanujam) was a brilliant student of Math Dept. In his first year, he failed in Physics. Late one night before he was to be shunted out of IIT for not securing the requisite minimum CGPA, he came to me and requested me to convert the 'F' grade into one that would let him stay.

And he produced an Affidavit from the Court of his Subordinate Judge (not one of those copycats) at Kumbakonam that he was the great-grand-nephew of the famous 'R' after whom he was named.

You know that I am a sucker for this type of South Indian Brahmins who are wizards in Math.

He said he would be eternally grateful to me.

And he WAS!!!

It just happened that a decade later when I was taking my Qualifiers in Complex Variables (I was a late-Kate as you know), he was the senior-most Post-Doc of the very same Professor who was forcing me to take his mid- and end- sem exams.

And as his senior-most Post-Doc he had the run of his Professor's Office.

CB should have asked me: I would have given him a better plot for his "5. Everyone".

GUL!!!

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Copycats

=================================================

There is this wonderful news item in the front page of Deccan Chronicle (where else?) of yesterday:

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CJ suspends copycat judges, wants report

"Aug. 25: The Andhra Pradesh High Court Chief Justice, Mr Nisar Ahmad Kakru, on Wednesday suspended five subordinate judges for allegedly indulging in copying during the LLM exams held at Kakatiya University in Warangal district on Tuesday."

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Having been a student and then a teacher all my life, copying is a matter of perennial and profound interest to me. Next to setting question papers and 'correcting' the answer scripts, Invigilation is the worst duty I had to do 6 times every year. Were they paying me for teaching or policing?

I am a follower of the RKN Principle that every student should have the fundamental right to study for free whatever subject he wishes, wherever he wishes, and should have the absolute right to be not examined at all. Unlike our own Chacha Nehru generation where we had to face pass-fail exams every year, my granddaughter Ishani perhaps will have one-tenth the number of such exams, the way the trend is going. I hope that her granddaughter will live in RKN's Ideal World.

Is copying good or bad? I would say it is immensely good in a broad sense.

Supratim gifted me a 550-page book (to which I referred time and again in my earlier posts) that I read cover-to-cover last month: he is a task master forever issuing commandments like: "Thou shalt not stop teaching, nor blogging, nor guling!" Page 410 has this passage: "The 97% of our DNA commonly called junk is largely made up of clumps of letters that, in Ridley's words, exist for the pure and simple reason that they are good at getting themselves duplicated." Mass -copying-machines!!!

If our DNAs were 100% copycats, we would all be clones of Adam and Eve eating clones of the same Apple, advised by the clone of their guide-serpent. It is the minority 3% that are no good at copying that lends variety and progress to life and civilization. So, the crime is not copying well but making mistakes occasionally.

During the Vedic times, there was no script nor books nor perhaps criminal copying. Some devastatingly beautiful hymn would be 'revealed' to one Rishi. He surrounds himself by a dozen or so disciples and makes them mug up that hymn and pass it on to the next generation. They all do that till one of them gets another hymn and adds it to the Veda, and the process goes on. This is nothing but 'creative verbal copying'.

With the advent of paper and printing, there was much less need for oral remembrance. Like Ishani is never going to remember her 20x20 multiplication tables: her calculator will take care of all transactions faithfully, except that it makes mistakes once in a while, and these mistakes would lead to the further 'progress' of civilization.

In our student days, copying during exams was strictly no-no. But, if you happen to have a kind invigilator, he can just pass on the 'right' final numerical answer to Question# 8 after 'looking it up' covertly from the best student in the Exam Hall. That best student would try to conceal his answer-script from the invigilator, but invigilators were too clever by half.

In the Chemistry Lab, it was ok if you could squeeze the 'salt' from the lab assistant in white overalls.

In the Physics lab, it was ok if in the dark room, you just 'focus' your friend's spectrometer by the Schuster's Method (while she was on the lookout at the entrance); but she has to do the rest of the experiment herself. She, in return, would reveal to you the 'readings' of your experiment from her elephantine memory.

If you are a teacher of QM II, say, it is not done if you bring your Class Notes of 25 years vintage and copy the contents on the blackboard, 'backing' your students instead of facing them. But, if you could mug up the entire Dirac Hydrogen Atom's 88 steps and copy them from memory with one hand in your pocket stylishly, you are a 'genius'. But the ideal teacher would distribute the damn thing to every student, ask them to throw their pens out of the window, just listen to you explain the 'concepts', facing the students, perhaps never getting up from your chair.

What a 'concept' is and how it is transmitted orally will take a book that I am going to write one of these days {;-}]

Regarding copying at IIT KGP, let my students write to me; and I would blog them with their names revealed; no 'anonymous' comments would be entertained.

I had never been a student at KGP except for one paper in Complex Variables for my Ph D qualifiers. How I copied in the midsem and endsem exams of that paper, I will sell, but not blog for free.

Any takers?

==================================================

A Nondescript Face

=======================================================

"That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark"

Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 105–109

*****************************************************************************

Not only in Denmark, but there was a minor edition of it in IIT KGP too.

Early 1965 I attended the first Interview of my life for the exalted post of an Associate Lecturer at IIT KGP. There were a dozen of us external candidates, of whom two were taken in by HNB, our HoD then.

The other was 'V', an upcountry youth. He was the precise opposite of me every way. Tall, lean, handsome to a fault with a face and a smile that won him friends (of both sexes) wherever he went. A Dev Anand in his youth.

Since we joined the same time, we were rather thrown together; the same Office shared by us (the present H N Bose Seminar Room), the same Hall, and the same Courses for different Sections (there was no semester system then).

He was so well-dressed (a typical upcountry trait), well-shaven, suited and booted, that anyone who looked at him would think he came from a well-to-do family. Very soon I knew that IIT KGP was a 'night-halt' for him, for, his eyes were firmly focused towards California, where he went after a couple of years.

But, while at KGP, he used to tag me along wherever he went, particularly to Gole Bazaar. He had rather expensive tastes like buying a camera, a cassette recorder, branded suit cases and several accessories of male fashion design. Gole Bazaar at that time rather 'belonged' to Bhandaris, Pujaris, Punwanis, Thackers et al, to whom a chaste Heartland-Hindi sentence was an open sesame. And it was child's play for our V to charm them.

In 'our' first spells of buying in Gole Bazaar, he used to take out his expensive leather wallet and dole out crisp hundred rupee notes hither an thither and asking them to sort of keep the change. I was the mute spectator quark trailing him in awe.

But soon, I realized that he was having 'accounts (khatas)' in all the major shops.

After he flew to his California, I couldn't visit Gole Bazaar for almost six months; for, wherever I walked, shopkeepers would rush out and catch me in the street and ask me what happened to 'V', who rather performed a neat vanishing trick. I came to know that his 'unpaid outstanding bills' in various shops ran into thousands.

I, on the other hand, was as poor as a church mouse and had a nondescript face. And was too shy to talk to anyone other than students and close friends. Added to that I was boyish, without a mustache or a beard. When I used to enter the Dining Hall, everyone mistook me for the latest addition to the Hall-Boys from Turipara.

And this boyish look lasted till I was 43. RKN wrote a piece on "Looking One's Age", I recall. Once I was the Chief Invigilator in Raman Auditorium. I reached half an hour early, signed all answer scripts, arranged all question papers and got everything ready, as the other invigilators tagged along one by one. After starting the Exam, I noticed that Indiradi didn't turn up (Everyone knew her). I handed over 'charge' to my next senior and left for a few minutes, since I had to 'check' my own Question Paper in another Hall.

By the time I returned, Indiradi was occupying my 'Chair', while the other invigilators were busy taking attendance, distributing question papers to late-comers and such tasks. As I entered the Exam Hall and was walking over towards her, she started shouting at me for coming so late and having the gumption of walking in nonchalantly; and asked me brusquely to go take my seat and wait for the answer script and the question paper. I was rather enjoying this familiar scene, till her cousin who was also a co-invigilator and my student a decade back, ran to her and whispered; "Didi, aapni ki korchen, ini Professor Shastry!" . Students in the front bench were smiling, and Didi was so apologetic that I had to go to the canteen for tea at once.

As I aged, I began to look more and more 'grumpy' to quote Indra's words, till I entered the Class Room, where all such notions were at once dispelled, and students rather felt friendly to me.

To this day, I enjoy my nondescript face. No one who looks at it would give a second look unless they happen to have something to get from me. This is a boon in Hyderabad. I enjoy the status of an undisturbed spectator, so necessary for blogging.

My son was feeling rather sorry to have such a grumpy gray-haired father in his upcoming Wedding Ceremony a few years ago. He dragged me to the nearest Men's Beauty Saloon and had my hair dyed jet-black and face given an expensive lift.

He was rather sorrier in the Function, since everyone took me to be his younger brother {;-}.

GUL!!!

=========================================================

"Be Thy Classmate"

============================================

1997: Last Friday of April; Hall of Qrs B-140

Year-End Party for 4th Year Physics Batch.

That batch was compact and had the following students (to the best of my and my wife's memory; PoLtS will add any we missed inadvertently, after all it is 13 years ago).

1. Arundhuti

2. PoLtS

3. Dora

4. Sreekripa

5. Indra

6. Dumbu Ghosh

7. Ghazal Kumar

8. A Kumar

9. D Kumar

10. Somchak

11. Tabla Pal

12. Kingshuk

Madhuri and two of her friends from Indira Gandhi Hall were the Guest Artists.

Myself and my son then in Class X (whom they all knew) devised a Game, that we called "Be Thy Classmate". We wrote all the above names each in a small folded slip carried on a tray by my son.

One by one they would pick up one slip each from the tray and read out the name it had on it. The chap who picked up the slip will have to BE that classmate of his that appears in his slip for the next 5 minutes. He will have to introduce himself as best as he could mimic, with family details like home town, siblings, favorites and allergies, and then field questions from the audience that are to be verified as true.

The Game went swell.

The last 2 slips left over matched Indra and Arundhuti. Each happened to pick up the other and tried as best as they could to rag themselves.

Madhuri & Co were the judges and unequivocally, unanimously and spontaneously gave away the 'Prize' to Dumbu Ghosh for his excellent mimicry. Later it was revealed that he was into Amateur Theatricals.

The 'Prize' was: "All the sweets that were left-over".

All of us had a great time while the cooking and serving was going on. RSS and his family were Guests of Honor.


***********************************************************************8

After a pregnant silence of over a month (during which they 'delivered' a sumptuous Headship on him), Vinit wrote a mail in which, for fun, he awarded three "Prizes" for the best of my blogs:

************************************************************************

First Prize goes to: "Bottom Line"

Second Prize goes to: "Torn fences & Broken Walls"

Third Prize goes to: "Seven Ages of (a Lying) Man"

*************************************************************************

He also mentioned that he was amazed to experience later in reality a bluff contained in the last above blog: He and his family were driven all around Allahabad for a full day in the car of a friend just for the pleasure of their long-lost sweet company.

I replied that I myself am most attached to the 100 odd impromptu limericks that happened to me a year and half ago. And my own 'Prizes' go to:

***********************************************************
Silver Medal:

************************************************************

Thursday March 5, 2009

St Charles!

"Vatican endorses 'Evolution Theory': Banner Headline in Deccan Chronicle, 5 March 2009"

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"We are so pleased and gratified
That Darwin's Theory is sanctified,
Both Pope and us
Came from Apes;
And Sir Charles is to be beatified!"

******************************************************************

Gold Medal:

*******************************************************************

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

What the Dickens!

"Charles Dickens's former home 'Bleak House' in Broadstairs, Kent is up for sale for 2 million Pounds Sterling": News Report

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"The stairs may be broad but the house is bleak,
The walls are broke, and the roof will leak;
The buyer will be taunted
That the house is haunted
By the ghosts of Winkle, Weller & Mr. Peakweak!"

****************************************************************

Those were truly heady days and nights for me.

==============================================

Magnificent Obsessions

==========================================================

My list of queer IIT KGP citizenry:

1. 'B' couldn't sleep for one whole month in the night time because he said: 'As soon as I hit the bed and try to fall asleep, this thought used to come to me: "It will be daylight by the time I get up";' he had to be on heavy tranquillizers

2. 'R' could never go to matinee cinema shows because: "I will miss the dusk, and it is dark by the time I come out"

3. 'gps' can't sleep in a house that has a single guava fruit in it.

4. 'Rk' can sleep soundly during the course of a roaring thunderstorm with fork, ball and sheet lightnings; but gets up and jumps out of bed when a mouse squeaks, during the course of the thunder storm

5. 'J' could never face a teacher in his class room but had to look out the window, because he can't 'see him' and 'hear him' at the same time

6. 'L' can never be a 'passenger' on a push-bike, scooter, mobike or a car; he has got to be in the driver seat. He makes unwilling exceptions in boats, trains and aircraft

7. 'SDM' would lock his room, pull the huge Godrej lock 3 times up and down, walk till the collapsible gate, return to his room to check the lock at least once without exception; even when I was ecsorting and locking his room; because he was lost in thought if alone or in talk if I was with him

8. 'DB' never could hold on to the frame of his rickshaw; he would rather take a tumble in corners, breaking his collar bone once, because one hand was busy smoking and the other holding his bag in his lap

9. 'DKA' has to clear his throat before the start and stop of every sentence in conversation

10. 'S' would always laugh 'hey..hey...hey' before every joke he narrates

11. 'K' needed an RS to launch him on his scooter from his Qrs and another one to 'receive' him in the stand and park it; he always had at least two RSes

12. 'SB', the professional typist, would at last come into his chamber, start typing one sentence, and invariably has to leave for his adjacent Qrs to pick up his nossyi (snuff) box

13. 'P' would park his push-bike right across 4 parked bikes at right angles; he says it is his habit; invariably his cycle would be on the ground when he returns

This list is typical but not exhaustive, by no means

IIT KGP was (maybe still is) a mini-madhouse ============================================================

CPM vs VPM

==================================================

Hereinafter, CPM stands for the newly joined Customer Project Manager, while VPM sits for the old and hidebound Vendor Project Manager.

*****************************************************

CPM: Hi, I am the new CPM

VPM: Hearty Welcome! I do hope you like the Product PT5 we are vending you

CPM: It is indeed excellent but I think you can install the later Sumatra 5.22 version

VPM: We have an even better latest Borneo 9.48 version coming up. It will just cost $ 500,000, double of the one we sold you. we can release it next month

CPM: I have talked to my CEO & the Pantry Girl; they are happy with the older version. But I suppose you can readily update it by tweaking PQS with LMK

VPM: LMK is excellent, but it will need Platform No. 14 instead of the 7 you have. We can update your Platform for a nominal $ 100,000

CPM: I have talked to our President & the Messenger Boy and they say "Old is Gold". But what about XRT instead of TGP?

VPM: Excellent suggestion. Only it will require a new de-bugging device. We supply this patch for almost free @ $ 15,000

CPM: I have put it to the Board & the HRM dame. They say it would delay the Release by 5 days. We are in a hurry

VPM: The best suggestion from my side would be an onsite visit for 3 months of our Senior Software Engineer and his QA staff. All we ask is hospitality in a 5-Star Hotel and Airfare in Business Class. We charge ZERO extra

CPM: All airports are closed here due to severe thunderstorms and all 5-star hotels are overbooked. Just stick with your old Product. I am going on vacation by road for 6 months. Nice talking to you

VPM: Have a Nice Vacation! Please coach your latest CPM before you leave.

Tata Bye BYE!!!!


====================================================

Bottom Line

==============================================

About 150 years ago, the Autocrat of the Boston Boarding House Breakfast Table said:

"I will say, by the way, that it is a rule that I have always followed, to tell my worst thoughts to my minister (clergyman), and my best thoughts to the young people I talk with."

A sound policy from a born-talker.

I had been rather instinctively following precisely the same policy ever since I happened to be surrounded by bright young students for 40 years at KGP.

And, now young Bloggees.

I don't visit temples, churches or mosques often. But I keep lodging my complaints about the indignities and inequities of the human condition to my Inner Ishwar. That Chap is an infinite thermodynamic sink and sponge that absorbs every insult but doles out small mercies.

It is certainly more fetching to the soul to raise an understanding smile than a prize-winning cabbage. And unlike the cabbages that rot, those smiles never fade from memory.

In 1977 when I met Moorthy Doctor in a remote small town in Tamilnadu to propose my sister in marriage to him, he was a young MBBS of 28 launching his career as a GP from a small cubicle in its Bazaar Road.

30 years later, he was elected as President of the Indian Medical Association of Tamilnadu. A rare feat indeed.

I have been following the secret of his success. It is just what Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a century and half ago. Moorthy Doctor is a very religious man, but once he sits in his chamber, he oozes charm. A patient entering his chamber is at once met by a winning smile: that cures 25% of the ills. Once he employs his healing touch that takes the pulse, another 25% is cured. A Rs 2/- shot and a couple of tablets cure the rest. A thorough understanding of Medicine as well as Human Nature. A vanishing breed of GPs.

And when he performed his daughter's wedding, the whole town of all religions, castes, creeds and sexes were there loaded with gifts.

A Positive Outlook.

Let me substantiate.

In the one-page Foreword he generously wrote for my latest booklet, this is the score of his 'good' words:

1. 'Nice': 4 times

2. 'Great': 3 times

3. 'Love': 3 times

4. 'Enjoy': 2 times

5. 'Appreciate': 2 times

6. 'Real': 2 times

7. 'Work': 2 times

8. 'Fruit': 2 times

And many positive words once each and no negative word at all.

And that was a Foreword written after going through the entire soft copy of the booklet word by word for, say, 3 hours at least.

*******************************************************************

Today marks the start of the 6-month-long festive season in AP.

It is the day of 'Vara Laxmi Puja'. This is essentially a Puja of womenfolks asking for long life, health and wealth of their husbands and kids. It is celebrated by women of all castes.

For Pujas of this sort, one usually invites the Brahmin Pundit to act as the Master of Ceremonies, chanting the Sanskrit mantras and instructing how to proceed: now deep, now dhoop, now bananas, now flowers, now coconut; and finally: now the Rs 116/- fees.

Our household has two resident Brahmin Pundits. My son is well-versed, sort of, in Sanskrit that he had till Class VIII. But he can read only Devnagari script but not the Telugu script in which all mantra-books are available in AP.

So, the other Brahmin, myself, is invited to perform a triple role: 1. Nominal Head of the Household (the Real Power-Center is Ishani, our 8-month-old resident Laxmi), 2. Husband of my wife who is one of the two Pujarinis; and 3. Amateur Pundit.

My son had the impossible task of holding his irrepressible daughter in his lap for an hour; she was the most enthusiastic Pujarini keen to participate in all the rituals.

At the end of the successful Puja, my daughter-in-law ceremonially paid me my Fees of Rs. 116/- which I promptly put in the kiddy-bank of her daughter.

Bottom Line:

Income: Rs 116/-

Outgo: Rs 116/-

Balance: A house aglow with happiness.

Long Live Idol Worship!!!


===============================================

El Nino

=================================================

I always wanted to write a dialogue-based short story with the following plot:

******************************************************************

1970: A reed-thin 27-year-old chain-smoking bachelor rotting as an Associate Lecturer for the past 5 years in the Physics Dept of IIT KGP is commanded by his wacky newly-acquired Ph D Guide to go travel to Howrah, take the Bus Number 6, spend an hour to reach IACS, take permission from its Librarian, spend a couple of hours copying in long hand a 5-page article in Russian in Czech J Phys by Muzikar and Pafamov on Vavilov-Cherenkov Radiation (Cherenkov was perhaps not Communist enough to deserve the Nobel, so the Vaviov prefix), return to KGP by evening, get the article translated into English, and pass it on to him the next day.

That is a mouthful, no? But so was that tyrant, SDM. Fortunately, by then, My Fair Russian Lady taught me just enough Russian to copy in long hand quickly and correctly.

The young chap boards the newly-commissioned Steel Express, finds all seats occupied, one of them by a fat chap with a fancy hand bag beside him taking up two seats. He asks the other (coming from Tatanagar) to make some space for him. And thereafter there is a running fight between the two for two hours (less one minute). The fat chap turns out to be an ex-KGPian ME Graduate employed in TISCO. They fight about the relative merits of ME vs Theoretical Physics, Private vs Public Sectors, Bengali vs Telugu, Patel Hall vs B C Roy Hall, Religion, Politics, Marriage and Morals.

Then comes Ramrajatola, and by chance they discover that both of them hold Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge in the highest esteem, exchange addresses just before Howrah Station and become life-long pen-friends.

********************************************************************

Now I know I don't have the gift to write dialogue-based short stories, so I give up.

But something bordering on this did happen in my personal life:

The only MA (English) degree-holder employed as an English Lecturer in our family, my sister, gets married to a budding Doctor busy trying to establish himself as a young Private Practitioner. He has no time at all, apparently, for anything else but his extremely busy and tense professional life.

As a wedding gift I presented a 200-page newly acquired novella which fascinated me to my 'English' sister.

And then I discovered that my sister got too busy adjusting to her new home, but my newly-acquired brother-in-law Doctor devoured it in 2 nights and thanked me for the book. Apparently, the way he relaxes after a busy day was to curl up with a good English novel before dropping to sleep.

That was the start of an 'unnatural' friendship between 'natural' adversaries (the salah and the raja).

That is 33 years ago.

The other day, my 'raja' brother-in-law, elevated to the august 'elected' post of President IMA (Tamilnadu) a year ago wrote a gracious Foreword to my latest offering (see the blogpost: 'Foreword' of Saturday, July 31st).

I am re-reading that 33-year-old book now. It is titled: "The House that Nino Built". Its Italian author's name sounds quite Indian: 'Giovanni Guareschi'. I first happened to read his 'The Little World of Don Camillo' followed by 'Don Camillo and the Devil'; and then this chatty 30-Chapter Personal Essay-filled
'House that Nino Built'.

That sort of gels: The other day, I gifted my booklet to a young e-friend of mine sitting in Israel who never saw me (except through the eyes of our mutual friend Aniket). And I happened to write the following senti-inscription:

"For the Personal Essay that Bridges the Unknown and the Unseen".

Nino's book has this piece of dialogue:

Margherita (Nino's wife):

"Children shouldn't ever read what their fathers have written. If it were a textbook of chemistry, physics or some other science, that would be different. But fiction is to be ruled out, absolutely. Above all fiction like yours, because nobody can be sure when you're serious and when you are joking, when you are sticking to the truth and when you have made up the whole story. There's no telling how he may interpret it.'

gps: My son never reads my gul-blogs (even when I tell him he figures in it)!!!!


===================================================

Powers of Ghost

============================================

One sunny morning at 8 AM, Rinku, the eldest daughter of RSS, appeared in our spacious Hall of Qrs C1-97 at IIT KGP.

She was in her Class IX at the KV (Central School) then. She had a ball-pen and a rough paper in her hand.

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Rinku: Uncle, jaldee se ek English poem likkhe deejiye

Me: Kya baat hai?

Rinku: Mere ko Assembly mey padhne ka hai 9.30 pe

Me: Topic choose karo; try karengey

Rinku: Agar topic milta tho pappa hi likh sakthe hai

Me: Aap ka school mey sabse bada joker kon hai?

Rinku: Hey..hey..hey...hamara Prinipal hi hai!

***********************************************************

That was the first piece of ghost-writing in English I had to do at KGP.

Title of the poem was: "The Prince"

By 8.30, the ten-line poem with rhyme and fairly good reason was in her hands. She thanked me and went away. Apparently it went terrific well and the Prince was all smiles and seized her paper for safe-keeping.

English is a powerful language and the meaning you extract from it depends:

"His head is like a green coconut" may mean it is sooooo sweet and delicious inside; or that it has water in place of grey matter.

Whenever the demands came from KV, I insisted that the student at least choose the topic. It never happened. From this I conclude that it is the choice of topic that is half the battle.

One evening my son and I had to take out our push-bikes and go round the Campus angling for a topic. The Hiji Station yielded nothing; but on our way to the Tech Market we saw a large number of members of the Technology Angling Club, busy fishing single-minded in the Lake with umbrellas covering their heads; and so the poem: "The Angler" got composed by the time we reached home.

But it required an overnight effort from 9 PM to 3 AM to compose an 80-line Theme Poem parodying Vikram Seth's "Frog and the Nightingale". It was titled: "Ms Buffalo & Dr Crow" and I think we still have a soft copy on my son's hard disk.

These are merely 'ghost-writings'.

Then come the several pieces of prose we all had to compose when, let us say, the the Dean asks the HoD for a ghost-write-up and the HoD dumps it on you.

These come under the head of 'ghost-ghost-write-ups'.

One morning at 10 AM at KGP I got a call from my eldest brother-in-law, Sri G Ranga Rao, IAS at Madras asking me to fax a two-page write-up on the current literary scene in Bengal by the evening.

Apparently, the tiny but cute Probasi Bengali Association in Madras chose him as their Chief Guest for a function of theirs. He had his schooling in Cuttack and so was very proficient in Oriya, and picked up very good spoken Bengali during his tenures in Bengal which was why he was chosen.

That was a little too much even for a super-fiction-writer like me, and I was wondering what to do, sitting under the mango tree at the Co-Op Canteen, when I spotted Mainak Sengupta passing along. I beckoned to him and asked him to do the job for me by the evening. He was the Culture Vulture I knew very well and was the reigning Secretary of SPICMACAY at IIT KGP. He did a Project under me in 'History of Science & Technology for Research Scholars' and has a lovely paper titled: "A Brief History of Radio Astronomy".

He said he would deliver it by 4 PM.

And he did.

Apparently it went off so well that GRR had a few kind words for me, which I at once passed on to Mainak.

Mainak smiled and said he would pass them on to Aparajita, his betrothed co-Research Scholar in EE.

You will find their names in my Schindler's List. The charming couple with two cute kids are now Professors of EE at the Deemed University BE College in Howrah, where myself and my whole family have a standing invitation.

That would be 'ghost-ghost-ghost writing'; no?

==============================================

Aurum 79

==================================================

Yes, that is GOLD!!!

But if I title this post as 'Gold', my inbox will be flooded with computer-generated spam from Gold Outlets.

I have always been averse to gold and silk.

That was because during my childhood in AP, there was too much display of these two in every function by womenfolk. That was all their wealth. Poor things: cash, land, houses, and every other form of wealth were the preserve of men, descending from father to sons.

Shree Suktam of the Rig Veda starts like: "Om, Hiranyavarnaam harineem suvarna rajatasrajaam, chandraam, hiranmayeem lakshmeem jaatavedo ma aavah".

Lakshmi is all gold and silver and moonshine.

My problem was that early in life I happened to read the story of King Midas whose touch turns his daughter into all-gold, like that blonde in Ian Fleming's Goldfinger.

What is the use of a girl of gold?

And then our science text had it that the silk saris ceremonially worn by our ladies demand the merciless boiling of thousands of silkworms blissfully asleep in their cocoons. What a horrible thing to wear!!!

Fortunately for me, in KGP, I saw very little of gold and silk displayed in daily life, at least.

It is funny that gold is what it is because it is inert.

I read that if all the gold ever mined in this world is stockpiled, it won't even fill an IIT Hangar of a double-football field size like the Tata Steel Stadium at KGP.

There is no doubt that a thin gold chain around the neck of a girl-child like Ishani certainly adds to the chain's beauty.

But, any gold-plated chain would do it even better.

But I used to see waist-belts of solid gold around fat dark middle-aged mothers of a dozen in my childhood.

Soon after my marriage, my wife landed in Qrs C1-97 with a small steel trunk as her wedding trousseau. I asked her what was there hidden in that Pandora's Box. She replied, a few silk saris and a few gold ornaments. I told her that if she was much attached to them she better conceal them because during those years burglaries were rampant in IIT Campus, and by then I myself had that Qrs and similar ones earlier broken in and stuff looted several times: "who steals my purse steals trash" (Othello)

With the result that our honeymoon plans to Digha got canceled; because she couldn't risk burglary and I was averse to shift her trunk to someone else's house for safekeeping.

The poor girl was stark alone in that wilderness (our twin C1-98 was vacant) when I was at the Institute supposedly teaching. And she came from an extra- large family in a temple town which knew no silence.

So, at the stroke of 11 AM she would be waiting for me eagerly in our verandah, and when she spotted my ramshackle bicycle, her face would light up like a thousand bulbs (she is very fair, you know, compared to me; so are her son and now her granddaughter; fair skin is much valued in the marriage market even now).

But one day the smile on her golden face was replaced by a sullen frown and as usual the reply was: 'Nothing'.

This went on for two days.

The third day, she broke down, and confessed that ALL her gold ornaments were missing by the time she returned from her one-hour stint in the Prem Bazaar Hospital (Free) OP duties.

But there was no break-in and it was quite mysterious. And she admitted that she was concealing them in her wardrobe instead of in her steel trunk, as per my suggestion.

I took great pity on her and asked her how much her gold ornaments would cost. She replied about Rs 30K. It just so happened that was exactly my PF balance (after 15 years of honest service at IIT KGP). So, I assured her that I would by hook or crook (I knew our kindly Gouri Babu) withdraw that amount in installments and replace all her gold within 2 years.

Oh, well, I don't have to describe the fruit of my magnanimity.

Next morning at 11 AM, I saw that she had walked to our front gate and was standing there, so she could spot my Rocinante from the turn at the horizon.

And she was all million-dollar-smiles.

And she announced, like Hanuman debriefed Lord Raam: "Found! Found!! Found!!!"

"Where?"

"In the folds of that old sari".

Both of us were at once richer by Rs 30K and happiness worth a thousand times that.

Our own 'Free Gifts of the Magi'.

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This reminiscence was triggered by a phone call to him that my son described this morning:

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Caller: "Mai, Ashok, Rajasthan se bol rahah hoon"

Sonoo: "Boilye jaldee"

Ashok: "My aap ki ek minute le sakta hoon?"

Sonoo: "Jaldee"

Ashok: "Aaap AP se hai naa?"

Sonoo: "Haa.. Haa"

Ashok: "Aisa hai; ki, merey paass do kilo ka gold biscuits hai"

Sonoo: "Rakhiye aapkehi paas"

Ashok: "Oh, aap jaantey hai!!!"

Sonoo: "Bahut.. Bahut"

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End of phone call,



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DeFrosted Cat

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Feeling too weak to compose anything original.

So, here is a wonderful parody (sent by Aniket) and the original below it.

The mills of the 'wit' grind slowly but grind superfine; all is grist to his impartial mills.

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Sitting by the Fire on A Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost's Cat from POETRY FOR CATS by Henry Beard
=============
Whose chair this is by now I know.

He's somewhere in the forest though;

He will not see me sitting here,

A place I'm not supposed to go.

He really is a little queer


To leave his fire's cozy cheer

And ride out by the frozen lake

The coldest evening of the year.

To love the snow it takes a flake;

The chill that makes your footpads ache,


The drifts too high to lurk or creep,

The icicles that drip and break.

His chair is comfy, soft and deep.

But I have got an urge to leap,

And mice to catch before I sleep.

And mice to catch before I sleep. ***********************************************************

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

=======================

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

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Paperbags & Paperbacks

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Supratim lately made two remarks:

1. "He had some Wodehouse books lying around at home and one day when I didn't have anything else to read I took one of those and started reading it and was immediately hooked".

2. "Its so much nicer to read from a book than from a computer screen".

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John Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, heralded a revolution; later came TV and Computer screen.

Still the pamphlet and the paperback seem to thrive.

It is said that the great Debendranath Tagore was very much attached to his grandmother. Upon her death he decided to end his life by drowning in the Ganges (Ramakrishna always called it the Gangamai and not Hooghly, no?).

As he was walking dejected, it seems a loose leaf of a printed sheet that was flying in the wind happened to hit his face and drop at his feet.

He picked it up and found in it the leading verse of the ancient Ishopanishad:

"Ishaavaasyamidam sarvam yatkincha jagatyam jagat
Tena tyaktena bhunjeetha maa gridhah kasyavit dhanam",

which roughly translates to:

"Whatever passes in this world is enveloped (belongs to) by Ishwar So, enjoy after renouncing (ownership), not coveting what belongs to others"

It is said that this touched him so much that he returned home and devoted himself to the study of Upanishads and became Maharshi, leading an active life of renunciation of the ego, raising a large family all of who turned out to be gems, the last being the Tagore; and invigorating the Brahma Samaj that led the Bengal Renaissance after the death of Rammohun Roy.

Whenever I went home on my vacations, the first thing I would do was to go through the English 'Prose Selections' of my younger sisters' school books. One day I found the charming piece from the autobiography of Gandhi: 'Third Class Travel', towards the end of which he concedes that he let his wife take bath in the 'Second Class' Waiting Room instead of the common tap on the Madras Central Platform, out of compassion to his wife.

And then admits that his partiality to his wife overcame his partiality to Truth, and quotes another gem from the same Ishopanishad (the shortest of the major Upanishads):

"Hiranmayena patrena satyasyaapihaitam mukham Tat tvam pooshan apaavrinu satya dharmaaya drashtaye",

which roughly translates to:

"The face of Truth is hidden behind a golden disk Unveil it Pooshan, so I, a lover of Truth can have a peek".

This rather charmed me so much that I not only read Gandhi's: 'My Experiments with Truth", but also browsed Radhakriashnan's: 'The Principal Upanishads' for fun (Hail Central Library, IIT KGP!)

Tom Friedman (whom I used to call Uncle Tom to the desperation of my friend Edwin Taylor), while writing about the importance of imparting literacy somehow to the women of Afghanistan said something like:

"The mother would send his son to the provisions store to fetch wheat flour; maybe in a paper bag; maybe she would empty the contents into her tin; maybe she would glance at the paper before throwing it into the bin; maybe it would have the latest news of man reaching the moon; and maybe that would expand her narrow horizon" (all words are mine).

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has a further take on this. He says:

"After reading the paper which wrapped the sweets, you can absorb what is in it, throw it away and eat the sweets (implying perhaps you digest the paper's contents and act on them)"

Nice similes all!!!

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Books & Guides

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Here is a comment that was posted yesterday on a 2-month-old blogpost: 'Nellore-Kovur Marathon':

Anonymous said... " Amiable post and this post helped me a lot in my college assignment. Thank you seeking your information. "

Can't quite make out.

It is definitely from a student in Nellore or Kovur (can't be from Timbuctoo).

Naidu, the ex-CM, who transformed Hyderabad from a lazy easy-going Nizam's place of palaces into a modern IT hub rivaling B'lore, set up the IT culture in AP. Every youngster here is more net-savvy than me.

He also replaced 'History' in the school curriculum with 'IT'.

Sad that 'history' is taking a sweet revenge on him.

In any case, students of English must be scanning the web day and night for their 'suitable' assignments: 'copy-paste'.

In our days it was 'mug-vomit'.

1950's: English surely was the bugbear of 90% of village matriculation students.

So, there appeared in the market fat volumes called 'Guides', shabbily printed on thin paper, but cheap enough.

They were published by Madras companies with names like 'LIFCO' (for Little Flower Company, with three little tiny tots as their emblem. Also Leo and Duco).

They appeared in the market before the text-books did: Inside information.

Marvelously produced but expensive text-books then came with a suitable time-lag.

These 'Guides' had all the 'lessons' followed by: Questions & Answers, typical essays, letter-writing exercises, typical grammar questions and what not.

We were forbidden to be seen with these things in our hands; along with vernacular 'pornography' pocket books and 'detective' books (starring Yugandhar on his red Lambretta scooter, a hotch-potch of Perry Mason, Holmes and Agaatha Christie themes).

The reason is that if the examiner finds two or more 'identical' essays, all these will be scratched and marked zero.

I did consult them for extra 'points', but I mugged up the text-book which apparently was ok!!!

Now, I think, web-search is replacing 'Guides'.

Anyway, in my University we had 2-years of grueling English, with 17 text books, Selections, novels and what not.

The Shakespeare drama was 'Julius Caesar' (Bernard Shaw's was 'Candida', the routine question on which was: "What is the secret in the poet's heart?": My answer was like: "Love & Sex don't mix for poets; while Love warms the poet's heart into sublime verse, sex cools it down to the absolute zero of disillusionment").

While I was passing through my 'Shakespeare' uncles' place, he asked me what my Shakespeare was, and when I said it wa Julius Caesar, he gifted me from his bookshelf one 'precious' copy of an 'annotation' book written by a devious British critic and told me to read it and use it since it was most unconventional.

'Julius Caesar' is special: unlike the other dramas of the Bard, the title-bearer of this drama is killed in the Third Act itself, although his ghost survives till the end.

So, the standard question used to be: "Who is the 'hero' of 'Julius Caesar'?"

A chap who dies midway can't be the hero. Nor Mark Antony, since I suppose there was another drama after him and Cleo.

The standard answer was: 'Brutus'; much like Yudhistir is supposed to be the hero of Mahabharat, though some say it is Draupadi.

Anyway, this queer book gifted me by my uncle very cleverly argues that Cassius is the real hero (it was he who plots the entire assassination while Brutus was just putty in his hands).

Like say, Shakuni could be the real hero of Mahabharat.

Lit folks are funny: How does it matter who the hell the hero is?

Why not Just Enjoy!!! Did Shakespeare bother?

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Mark Twain: "There is no difference between one who doesn't read and one who can't".

Rather strong words!!!

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