Marbles & Blocks

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

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:

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

"...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)..."

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

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:

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

"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."

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

How TRUE?

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