Grammar of Bargaining

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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Hyderabadi Bargains

He says 80, I smile;
And then 70, I scowl;
50, he beckon;
30, deal's done;
And yet I feel a fool!

Posted by G P Sastry (gps1943@yahoo.com)

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Bargaining is the Spice of Life.

It is said that Life itself is a Commerce with Elements: not the chemical elements of the Mendeleevian Periodic Table, but the Darwinian things we call Elemental Urges; you know... Struggle for Existence, Survival of the Fittest (or Fitter if there are only two like Adam & Eve and one of them is a Grammarian), Sexual Selection (Hmm!), Origin of the Specifics & Generics etc.....

To my utter surprise, I am now told that at this rather late Age of Biology, a Bureau of Big Biologists (BoBB) had a Group Distention....("the state of being distended, enlarged, swollen from internal pressure"....Medical Dictionary) as to the briefest and precisest Definition of Life (Brevity being the Soul of Wit).

I was wondering what was the hurry;...looks like somewhat less than a billion Dollars of NASA Search-for-ET-Life-Project are in for bargaining.

Ha, now I know...Bargaining!

Well, apparently after some Hard Bargaining they did come up with a more or less agreeable definition...it is the briefest alright, just about 10 simple words even I can follow. If you think I am going to leak it out and spoil the fun for Presidency College Alumni, you have read me wisely but not well.

That is just the Definition of Life.

As for Meaning of Life, which is quite a different kettle of fish (sorry!), I am not going to let any Nobel-Busybody define the Meaning or Meaninglessness of my Life for me, it being as intensely a Personal Matter as my ATM PIN, till it is phished (a "variant of phreaking-influenced-fishing" as my online Webster tells me).

Nor even Maugham.

But I digress, as usual.

Coming back to Bargaining, there is no field of human endeavor that is not touched by Bargaining.

Take the august Judiciary symbolized by that cute blindfolded Dame with a Hyderabad Raddiwala Balance in her pale hand. One would expect nil-bargaining there. But no, I am told that there is what is spicily called Plea Bargaining even by confirmed criminals.

Talking of criminals, we read (past as well as past participle of read, re: conjugation of verbs, conjugation not to be confused with conjugal which is quite a different fish...!) in our school books that CID stood for Criminal Investigation Department. I was upset by this Criminal Expansion. (But one should never trust school books implicitly: As Feynman was exploding, reading in his basement text books fit for prescribing in schools, lots of Bargaining was going on behind his back even in his Gold Rush State).

I stand corrected: CID nowadays stands for Crime Investigation Department, like or unlike maybe CPI is just neither or no more not for Crime Party of India,....look at how much hedging I did in that first subsidiary adjectival clause following the second Principal Clause, the second parenthetic subsidiary clause being this, which is indeed the third, followed by this fourth subsidiary pitifully exclamatory clause: "Miss Groby Help!" (see the Post: Hinglish Semantics.)

Yes, Hedging Funds, first cousin of Bargaining Pleas.

In Politics, Bargaining is known as horse-trading...again we are on to horses and horsing around (horse-trading: "negotiation accompanied by mutual concessions and shrewd bargaining": Free Online Dictionary).

In Religion, it is all over the place in all major religions as far as I know (it is those Bargain Sales of infamous Indulgences by the Papal Church that so infuriated Martin Luther and led to Reformation, largely).

In my part of South India, my mother taught us early to Bargain with Balajee, the resident Deity of the beautiful Tirumala Seven Hills.

Unlike other austere gods and goddesses who insist on animal or even humane sacrifices, Balajee is easily pleased. Suppose you want to pass in First Class after a miserable performance in your Exams (you having been otherwise busy). You just pray to him offering him Rs 100 for a Third Class, 200 for Second Class and finally your curly stylized hair for a High First Class. And after the results are out, you know precisely where you stand vis-a-vis Balajee (Balajee doesn't demand Advance Cash-Down or EMIs....he just waits and smiles).

In more critical cases like the health of your child who is having fits with 106 deg Fahrenheit temperature, her mother Bargains with Him that she would drop in His Hundi ALL the gold-ornaments that happen to be on her body at that moment: there is a beautiful word for it: "Niluvu Dopidi" (literally the Lord is to do a "Standing Robbery" of her ornaments).

If the child is male, cute, fair, one without a second, the mother may even offer her hair and get completely tonsured.....didn't some well-known Actress of Perpendicular Cinema do literally that for verisimilitude?

Ask your Mother for the Meaning of your Life when you were having those spasms.

Don't think we are the only weak-kneed Deity-Bargainers: I vaguely recall a Wodehouse story (I beg to be corrected) where a passenger on an Ocean Liner caught in rough seas offers to donate a 6-foot Candle to his Church if he reaches land safe...but when he sees by and by the possibility of his safe-landing, he just mutters when reminded: "Let me set foot on land first and RUN....catch me if I give even a 6-inch candella!" (Like novella, eh?).

And finally Promotion of the Campus Husband...my wife didn't tell me in so many words, but I saw she was skipping her beloved breakfast (making it up in Lunch & Dinner?) till the results were safely out.

And she later fed our erstwhile Diro sumptuous Dal Vadas when he visited our Qrs C1-97 trying his best to make me work on a Paper of his on Lasers that was uppermost on his mind then...but you know me, I Bargained with my Balajee that I would stop my Woolgathering at Harrys forever if I come out of this life-threatening laser-thing unscathed.

The Lord was kind to both my wife and me; but as for me keeping my end of the Bargain, (see above candella promise) ...maybe just for a rainy afternoon.....

But, as you well know, I did write a Laser-Booklet which Prof ST Abidi, Chairman, Nehru Museum whisked away and published as NMST 001.

I am told this was a sell-out. It was published free of cost because Three Wise Magi gifted everything needed for the fledgling venture: 1. Paper by Dean, SRICC, 2. Printing by IIT Press, 3. (Non-existent) Royalties by the celebrated Author.

STA priced it at differential rates: Rs 15 for the IIT Public, Rs 25 for other Museums, and $50 for Edwin Taylor of MIT (to whom I shrewdly Dedicated it) who thereupon was made a Life Member of NMST.

STA told me that this was the first venture that made profits for NMST by virtue of his phenomenal skills at Hard Bargaining.



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Autocrat's Masterpiece

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Yesterday's post: Fits & Starts had this sentence:

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"....The salient feature of Ram Rajya is that everything worked as a Universal Constant (till 10,000 years....when I suppose it ended with a Bang like the Autocrat's Deacon-Masterpiece)......"

Also, in a couple of my earlier posts I talked about bullock carts and horse carts and their whimsies.

Then on, Oliver Wendell Holmes' rhymed masterpiece has been rolling in my head pleasantly. I must have read this at least five times in as many decades..but it still enchants me...to everyone his idiosyncrasy.....my good father used to read aloud Tennyson's poems on King Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere to my utter astonishment. Even at a tender age I thought these goofy; it is my privilege.

So here is my own goofy fancy to those who happen to be like-minded.

Enjoy!

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Courtesy: www.gutenberg.org/etext/751

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE: OR THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS-SHAY."

A LOGICAL STORY

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss-shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, -
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive, -
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss-shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always SOMEWHERE a weakest spot, -
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still
Find it somewhere you must and will, -
Above or below, or within or without, -
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise BREAkS DOWN, but doesn't WEAR OUT.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell YEOU,")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it COULDN' break daown -
- "Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan the strain;
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, -
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees;
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," -
Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through." -
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew."

Do!  I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grand-children--where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss-shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;--it came and found
The Deacon's Masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten; -
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; -
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it.--You're welcome.--No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake-day. -
There are traces of age in the one-hoss-shay.
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whippletree neither less nor more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, AS A WHOLE, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be WORN OUT!

First of November, 'Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-horse-shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they.

The parson was working his Sunday's text, -
Had got to FIFTHLY, and stopped perplexed
At what the--Moses--was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n-house on the hill.
- First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill, -
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet'n-house clock, -
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
- What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once, -
All at once, and nothing first, -
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss-shay.
Logic is logic.  That's all I say.

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Fits & Starts

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T. S. Eliot:

"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper"

.............................http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot

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Nothing in human affairs is a constant...not even Death.

Around 1985 when the average age of IIT KGP Employees was around 45, LIC came up with a lucrative Group Insurance Scheme, wherein by just signing a monthly deduction from salary of Rs 30, my wife was assured of a cool Rs 1 lakh if I die in harness, before my retirement at 60.

How glad I was!

But then God apparently loved Professors and they started falling off like ninepins in their 50s.

LIC was going at a terrific loss for the goof-up they made in thinking that Teachers don't die young since theirs is a tension-free life.

Not IIT KGP Life!!!

So, in 1995, the Chief of LIC of our Midnapore Circle had to address all the IIT KGP Employees in the Netajee Auditorium and beg with folded hands either to live a Long and Happy Life till 60 or enhance the monthly Premium to a whopping Rs 120 making allowances for the Fourth Pay Commission, Revised Actuary Tables etc.

We all chose to pay the Revised Premium....who wants to live after retirement away from the KGP Heaven?

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Not even Ram Rajya is a constant...it is supposed to expire exactly after 10,000 years to a second by our Tower Clock.

Gandhijee, the most astute politician ever, prayed publicly to bring Ram Rajya back to Independent India.

Well, I love Nehrujee as fondly as I love Gandhijee, but 10,000 years of Fabian Socialism (with Black Market) under him as PM would be a bit too much...5,000 is about the adult dose.

Once, to please my mother (87), I, my wife, my son and our Reddy Driver visited a popular Ashram near Nellore and gifted them Rs 1000. The Swamijee, himself in his late 80s, gave us an Impromptu Discourse for half an hour, which we all loved (these people are as spell-binding as the Ancient Mariner). My wife, son, and Reddy Driver are so impressed that they are pining for a repeat.

Ram Rajya happened to be uppermost in Swamijee's mind that evening...and he described it in great detail, quoting verse after Sanskrit verse.

The salient feature of Ram Rajya is that everything worked as a Universal Constant (till 10,000 years....when I suppose it ended with a Bang like the Autocrat's Deacon-Masterpiece): All people will have to go in the strict chronological order in which they came into this world..no father shall ever see his son die before himself...how wonderful!

Again, no woman would suffer widowhood! This set me thinking: to be consistent with the chronological order thing cited above, wives should be older to husbands. That is wonderful... I read somewhere (and I beg to be corrected) that Sitajee was somewhat older to Ramjee.

Nothing however is said about the Widower-Remarriage....I guess it was approved if the widower can find again an older virgin (because there were no widows) who would die before him and turn him a second-hand widower ready for remarriage to an older virgin....

But I guess we are going in circles, no?

But one should never argue with Swamijees...they do serve an eminent social purpose by instilling immense confidence in the hearts of their disciples like me bitten by this Charming Cobra they call Life (a little pilferage from Maugham there).

Just listen politely and then...blog if you wish to.

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Nothing ever is sinusoidal simple harmonic either in our affairs as of the profane Kaliyug nowadays...not even the climate....what with all this Global Warming and stuff.

Most things are like Sawtooth-Waves....Fits and Starts!

There are two initial phases in the Human-Affair-Saw-Tooths (or is it Teeth?)

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1. Those that start with the Ramp and build up to a crescendo and suddenly detumesce with the Downward Vertical....and the cycle repeating....

The best example was the 2009 Great Indian General Elections.

What a slow but terrific build-up!

All politician Toms, Dicks and Harrys going live on all TV Channels expounding their causes and special virtues and exhorting us to vote for them! And Panel Discussions on every obscure Channel!

And then all of a sudden the Election Commission blanket-bans them 2 days before GE.

And a sudden deafening silence, we not knowing what to watch or do anymore.

Till the Counting starts.

Again a slow but terrific build-up till Soniajee is declared a winner.

Then a sudden silence.

Till the CWG builds up...we are now midway on the ramp.

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2. Those that start with a sudden vertical rise and die down in a slow whimper (of Eliot)...and the cycle repeating again and again...

The best example of this kind is the SEFASA: South East Fringe Area Security Association of the Dandakaranya Campus of IIT KGP:

......http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/09/sefasa.html

Everything would be quiet and happy till a Big Dacoity takes place in one of the C1 Qrs in the Fringe Area.

Next day the GBM of SEFASA would be hastily convened and everyone would agree to revamp the good old petered-out Security Drill.

There is a Night Guard employed semi-permanently (no Day Guard...Ram Rajya during day).

He would be summoned and grilled what he was doing that night when the big event took place. And all alibis would be quashed and he would be dismissed for Drinking & Sleeping (smell him!).

He would then recommend his saalahjee or mamajee both of them teetotalers.... and willing to work for the dirt-low pay the SEFASA could afford...the choice is yours....

We settle on the saalahjee who is younger, somewhat.

And then Teams would be formed again of residents to go forth every night with a whistle (no lathi..that would be provocative and offensive instead of defensive..Law is Law!) to Security-Check on the new (or thrice earlier) Security Guard whether he is doing his night-rounds vigorously or dozing off.

A team of two Faculty Members is never trusted because while on their rounds they would invariably end up quarreling as to Who is the Bigger (like the Wodehouse Captain Biggers).

So a minimum of three would be rostered in advance for the whole month.

First month works fine. The three would forgather at 11 PM and would walk around till 4 AM chatting, squatting, smoking, whistling and telling chuglies about their HoDs merrily.

Then come the Rains with the regularity of Ram Rajya.

One by one Faculty alibis would start piling up, as replacements are rostered for each night.

And then winter would set in.

The enthu would gradually trickle down and the Working Hours reduced to between 2 AM and 3 AM done from home: The Security Guard would have to whistle back as and when the surviving lone Faculty Member in the Team of 3 whistles from his Qrs.

Which he would do since he knows where the Faculty Member of that Night's Duty has his Qrs.

And then saalahjee would sleep off as soon as the Faculty Member does....a merry twosome.

And then a Big Dacoity would take place.....

You know the Drill by now................

I survived at least ten of these Bang-Whimper Saw-Tooth Cycles in my 20 year stay at C1-97.

Till I shifted to the Flat B-140, which was obviously more secure and I was well out of SEFASA (where one night I was rostered with SDM and I had to pay with a Pot of Rosagollas to the Secretary of SEFASA to reschedule it).

I miss it though...what fun and frolic!

My Qrs C1-97 was (or were?) in the middle ground so no midnight dacoity ever took place...only sundry daylight robberies, thefts, purse-snatchings (who steals my purse steals trash...) and brass-tap pilferages.....nothing to blog home about!


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Hinglish Semantics

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Webster: "semantics":

"the language used (as in advertising or political propaganda) to achieve a desired effect on an audience especially through the use of words with novel or dual meanings"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semantics

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Lewis Carroll:

'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all.'

....................Through the Looking Glass,

http://www.sabian.org/Alice/lgchap06.htm

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As I blog furiously nowadays, I am always troubled if I am handling this foreign tongue correctly.

For a chap like me whose mother tongue is not English, who never even visited an authentic English-speaking country, who wrote only dry Technical Physics Stuff till 65, it is foolish to ponder on this. There is just no time to polish, burnish and improve when you compose so many words everyday....as if there is no tomorrow.

It is hypocritical for me to say that I am blogging just for self-expression or fun anymore; for I do click on Stats on my Blogger Dashboard every now and then and look at how many and which Pages are being Viewed "by Now, by Day, by Week, by Month and All Time". It is not just Pride or Prejudice, but also to get at why the ancient 'Reco Mela-2' (out of a series of 5) and 'Post a Comment' are racing to an all-time high and the nascent 'Cook It Up!' is being lapped up like nobody's business.

So I write for being read if possible. Weak at knee!

And if those who are my intended audience don't complain loudly about how I write my English, I guess I am doing fine, given the constraints.

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Thurber:

"Miss Groby taught me English composition thirty years ago. It wasn't what prose said that interested Miss Groby; it was the way prose said it. The shape of a sentence crucified on a blackboard (parsed, she called it) brought a light to her eye. She hunted for Topic Sentences and Transitional Sentences the way little girls hunt for white violets in springtime......"

.........................."Here Lies Miss Groby":

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If Thurber was overawed by his English Teacher, I am nowhere.

This bit of introspection now is because Pratik had some qualms about a few things he wrote recently and I responded as best as I could:

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Pratik:

"...In the second one please replace 'was' with 'is':

I apologize for the big mistake, (this 'There was' bug in limerick created this!)

'A gentleman named G P Sastry,
Who is known for his mastery.' "


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gps:

"...I think 'was' is more appropriate because it goes nicely with 'joined' and 'created'. The thing refers to gps's IIT stint (not life). A sudden 'is' looks awkward. And the subsequent 'is' in the last line is idiomatic; "the rest is history".

Your instincts were right.

Your qualms are needless.."

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Pratik:

"...When I read my line I was not comfortable with its grammar (you would never criticize), I think the following is also not correct:

"...All of us identify your blogs as our stories be it 'Rickshaws' or 'Bookache'."

('it' does not go with 'blogs' or it does? I'm not sure)

or better maybe:

"Each one of us identifies each of your blogs as his or her story be it 'Rickshaws' or 'Bookache'. "

or best:

"...I identify your each blog as my story be it 'Rickshaws' or 'Bookache'. "

instead of what I wrote:

"...Each one of us identify your blogs as our stories be it 'Rickshaws' or 'Bookache'."

Please tell me the correct one (if it is there!)...."

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gps:

"..In my blogs and mails I don't care for grammar at all. But I am not boasting when I say that I go through my posts at least ten times before 'releasing' them (sometimes even immediately after)...

If my father, who taught me English but never published anything, looks at any of my posts he will burn them all for their poor grammar. I wouldn't care for his criticism at all, but adopt any changes he makes in my use of prepositions about which I am always in doubt, but he was a master...."

Coming to your sentence I would still go with your original:

"Each one of us identify your blogs as our stories be it 'Rickshaws' or 'Bookache'.

The sense is clear and it sounds wonderful. And it is the best of all alternatives which are in my opinion: ugly and contrived...."

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I recall Feynman complaining that in one of his Committee Reports which he wrote up (somewhat unwillingly), the Editor replaced all his 'that's with 'which'es and vice versa.

Sigh!

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G. H. Vallins:

"......Andrew Lang said after reading Fowler's The King's English, the predecessor of Modern English Usage that he was "afraid to put pen to paper". As long as such a fear is not downright paralysing, it is a salutary one......"
...................................................Good English

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Hail Blogosphere!
We've no Referees here
Nor those goofy Editors
We stand or fall by our Readers

Hail Blogosphere!


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Cook It Up!

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http://lowres.cartoonstock.com/history-cannibal-cannibalism-explorers-cooking_pot-cauldron-rman15056_low.jpg

A generation or two earlier when joint families were prevalent in South Indian Brahmin communities like ours, our male members were innocent of cooking and depended hopelessly on their womenfolk even for a cup of coffee, which as every fan of RKN knows, was more a holy ritual than simple nourishment.

Women loved this dominance of theirs and ridiculed any male forced to burn his fingers (other than professional wedding-cooks who were all able-bodied males since no woman could handle a handi or kadai of 30 kg sabji or sambar without swooning).

The elder 3 brothers of my father (who was the youngest) couldn't cook at all, since they didn't need to: there were enough ladies in their extended households. Indeed the eldest, who lost his wife early, had to depend on hired cooks after every lady in the household got married or passed away (Somerset Maugham in the last para of his Razor's Edge says in his typical sardonic way which cost him a Nobel that both these events make equally good endings for a novel: The interest passes on to the next generation).

The hired cooks exploited the situation and turned ECCPs (Extra-Constitutional Centers of Power...give it to our bureaucrats: they come up with cute things like TPEP for Ten-Point Economic Program; both born in Indirajee's Emergency...the good old heart pines...) .

But by the time my father got married, the Joint Family died giving birth to Nuclear Families.

My father (Bless His Soul!) was a long-suffering man: he had the courage of his wife's convictions.....

And my mother was ultra-orthodox and took leave three days every month, when she would refuse to enter either the Puja or the Kitchen.

So my father learned cooking of sorts willy-nilly and imparted his culinary skills to me while I was an enthusiastic Intern under him from a tender age: first peeling vegetables, then lighting the chulha, then de-mounting the sizzling vessels with the help of a customized torn cloth, and so on till I graduated into a Certified Cook by the time I joined KGP.

Whenever I was shunted to a Qrs against my will there , I had to buy two kerosene Janata Stoves, some vessels, some provisions and try to survive on a modest budget.

But gradually the 4-course dinner would start dwindling to 3, then 2, and then finally ONE khichiri or stew (with everything including rice thrown in). Cooking for oneself and eating alone was not my idea of living at all.

A day would come when I would say: "This far and no further", join Gokhale Hall Mess or Faculty Hostel, after a celebratory hurling of stoves, vessels, coffee pots, ladles, spoons one by one from the Third Floor BF- window at midnight so no one would be disturbed. Miraculously however, when I peeped next morning at dawn down the window, the grass below would be glistening with fresh dew but no trace of the midnight-devilry: such was the efficiency of IIT KGP Rag-Pickers Association (IITKGPRPA).

This ritual repeated thrice: 1. From BF-6; 2. From BF-14; 3. From C-23.

But my reputation as a South Indian Brahmin Cook spread far and wide and my free services were in great demand whenever a group of 5 or 6 forlorn bachelors went on picnics in the Midnapore Forests (now out of bounds) squeezing in the groaning Fiat Millicento of Prof BCB (who much later offered his Antique Centerpiece that had to be declined politely).

We would park under a huge tree; and while the rest did menial jobs like collecting 3 roughly identical stones for a make-shift stove, dried leaves, sticks and hay for fuel, lighting the fire by matchsticks hidden in every pocket, I would be peeling vegetables, cleaning rice, preparing masala for the stew and such specialist stuff.

And discover we forgot to bring salt.

A Hunt Party would then take off in the Millicento for the nearest hamlet where they would explain our plight to the comely tribal housewife in a dumb charade and finally succeed in getting some rock-salt.

And everyone would slurp and eat heartily...it is wisely said: "Deprived Sleep cares for no Bed and Deprived Hunger cares for no Taste". I would have added: "Deprived Love cares for no Beauty" were I not this Paragon of Modesty.


Eventually VR got married and had a wonderfully set-up kitchen where his Mrs ruled like a Queen and once in a while threw home-cooked dinners for his erstwhile starving bachelor friends.

Whenever she was away, the old bachelors would regroup there for a stag-party and would requisition my services as an expert cook.

The mod kitchen was at first new to me and led to several mishaps; but VR, the Chemical Engineer, would be handsomely supportive.

One night, while VR was chatting up his guests and boosting up their morale with glasses of clean gin (I was ever a teetotaler...alcohol makes me sober), I mistook his glass of gin for water and poured it into the thick sambar boiling on the stove on its diluting mission.

When he eventually returned and was looking for his gin, VR found water instead. I realized my goof-up, felt very sorry, and was wondering how the sambar would be going to taste. But VR with his ChE expertise comforted me saying that the gin would have evaporated leaving no trace much before it could do any mischief, and poured his glass of water into the vessel...and everything was fine in the end (these ChE guys know their Fractional Distillation lessons).

There was another bloomer the same night.

I picked up a good-looking stout vessel, poured cooking oil into it, lifted it onto the gas high-burner, lighted it and went out for a puff of smoke. By the time I returned in a few long seconds to resume my frying, I discovered that someone had stolen the vessel from my stove. Upon an Inquisition everyone pleaded their stout alibis. And it was becoming a Poe Mystery.

Then VR joined me and asked me which vessel I took down. On examining the Pots & Vessels almirah, and by a rigorous process of elimination of the impossible vs improbable, he smiled wanly like Sherlock Holmes and said; "My dear Watson, look below the gas stove and you will find your missing vessel in a blessed heap".

And lo! It was there, all of a solid shiny shapeless mass. While I was wondering what could have brought down the good-looking vessel into such an awful mess, VR announced: "Elementary, Watson, you have taken out the Rasam Vessel made of lead and used it for frying!".

Apparently Rasam tastes very tangy when made in lead vessels; but since the Melting Point of lead is so low compared to brass, iron or steel, the gas burner would melt it up when it is used for frying; the Boiling Point of cooking oil being so much higher....it should be used to boil water, but not for deep-frying.

I was feeling so desperately ashamed and was wondering what his Mrs would say, when VR announced: "There is nothing to worry...we will simply scoop out the solid mass of lead, go to the Vessel-Maker in Gole Bazaar and he would shape it back @ Rs 10. Remember that you only melted the Rasam vessel...not boiled it away!!!"


Such jolly good old sports Mrs & Prof VR were.... "May Their Souls Rest in Peace!"


...Posted by Ishani

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Manic Ambulators

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That is my Latin for Crazy Walkers.

Had I titled it in English thus, my Inbox would be flooded by computer-generated spam by Search Engines (Machino Circumspecto) from Suppliers of Prosthetic Walkers (not yet...not yet...porey..porey..)

RKN is the proudest of this species in the World of Indian English Literature (or is it Anglo-Indian?) and has written extensively on the goodies of interminably long walks (legend has it that these could stretch for four or five hours). He would take his walk along the streets of his Mysore, keep on the lookout for material, talk to one and all of his acquaintances, shopkeepers, and interesting strangers.

But Khushwant Singh who was also a fond walker was not exactly amused: Once they happened to share the same Hotel while on an International Conference and used to try long evening walks together side by side. Apparently Khushwant was annoyed by this habit of RKN of stopping abruptly in his tracks when he had something particularly interesting to say; and these sudden halt, talk and go jolts took all the fun out of our Sardarjee's idea of brisk walks. Possibly he was also gathering material and these jerky Parking Breaks didn't help his smooth flow of ideas.

During my school days in our Village, we never walked....we just ran.

When I shifted to my University at Visakhapatnam, we used to live a few meters from the sea-shore for 7 years and there was no day I didn't take a long walk on the sands, evening or morning. Alone: not talking to anyone nor collecting material for my forthcoming blogs half a century later. Just gathering wool and at times ruminating the undigested stuff from Jenkins & White or Saha & Srivastava if there was an exam tomorrow.

And dreaming about you know what.

For the first six months at KGP I was living close to the Main Building so there was no need for a cycle. But as soon as I was unwillingly shifted to far away Qrs I bought a brand new Green Avon cycle @ half-a-month's-take-home. It was stolen the very next day, breaking my youthful heart like it was a surai full of tears (aquario lacremo).

Then on I took a vow not to buy a new cycle at KGP. I bought an old Hercules but had to sell it next week to meet emergency expenses connected with intake of nicotine.

One of my friends leaving KGP for good gifted me his old Horse of Second World War Vintage Phillips. But by then I shifted to our Faculty Hostel which was again close to the Main Building and so it was parked permanently outside the Hostel Mess in sun, rain or hail; but nobody would steal it....rather they would offer Rs 10 to get it cleaned so it would be less of an eyesore to visiting dignitaries. I don't remember precisely what happened to it: maybe I gave it away to our Bearer when he wanted it to meet emergency expenses connected with his intake of C(2)H(5)OH.

I enjoyed walking then to my Heart's content again for 7 years.

And then I was shunted to Qrs C1-97 once again against my will. It was not an easy distance to walk to the Main Building for a habitually late riser because Gate # 5, which I am told is now the busiest, was closed and it was a punishing detour; often I had the temptation of scaling the Berlin Wall, but I was no Snaky Willie of Great Train Robbery. So another friend of mine gifted me a 24" Humber Cycle (1945 Model) which was too heavy and high to drag and mount, but ran like a rabbit once you are up. This had to be soon decommissioned since its antique spare parts were no longer available in the market. Ultimately it had to be abandoned in the garage of Qrs B-140 when I retired 30 years later.

A few years after I got married, I was suddenly tempted to buy a Bajaj Chetak because my wife was anything but a walker and my son grew too heavy to be carried about on my head.

Within 6 months of driving the jolly good scooter merrily day in and day out, I found that all my pants had to be reopened and widened and restitched. Then on I decided to take up long evening walks around the Campus. The trouble with Leos like me is that we overdo everything that grips our momentary fancy.

With the result that within two months all my pants had to be reopened, tightened and restitched, which made the Tech Market Bhanja Tailors very very glad.

Yo-yo.

By then Gate # 5 opened during working hours and I happily started walking to the Institute back and forth 4 times a day.

But unfortunately many of my students became Professors by then and used to offer lifts to me which I couldn't refuse without hurting their feelings. And ex-Diro Professor GSS who took a laserly interest in me used to stop his chauffeur-driven Staff Car, open the back door, and invite me to get in...a most embarrassing daily event.

So I bought a third hand nondescript 22" Hero cycle from our Gowala and dragged it along by my side during my walks to the Institute...a silencer for every Good Samaritan.

And then I bought my Maruti 800 to fulfill my life-long dream and used to commute to the Institute driving it; to Parag's fun and frolic:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/07/testy-driving.html

But late in the evenings, when every pigeon was home, I used to drive down to Harry's, park my car there, take Tea, walk to the Tech Market, take Tea, walk round the Institute, return to Harry's, take Tea, and drive back home.

I was beaten only by a slightly more crazier Professor: Amalendu of ME. He used to ride on his Bajaj Chetak (mine was nationalized by my son) and whenever he saw me walk he would stop and offer a lift; and when I declined politely but firmly that I was walking under Doctor's orders, he too would remember his Doctor's orders and walk by my side dragging his Chetak all the way wherever I went.

Amalendu won all the rounds handsomely till I quit KGP.


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Tables & Figures

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My son is off to Gaithersburg (MD) on one of his short Business Trips (which he doesn't enjoy anymore.....he will miss his daughter Ishani).

He tells me that Parag is a post-doc there.

This reminds me of a weak interaction (on and off over a couple of decades till I retired) with a scientist.

It started with a reprint request on a picture post card from him for one of my Papers in AJP. The picture was beautiful and it was under the glass sheet on my table (not Table) till I quit KGP. He used to ask me for more reprints by and by and I was curious about him...there were very few reprint requests for any of my Papers except one for which there were about 60 from all over the globe.....I peeled off the stamps for my son and found that the most beautiful stamps are from the least known countries and the worst are from the most well-known; may be there is a correlation there, philatelists should know.

One day I got a huge packet from him, opening which I found it was mostly Tables and Tables....if I recall well, about Radiation Dosimetry....how many units of Gamma rays or X-rays are to be given to whatever cancer (my wife had to undergo mild doses of this thing last year...but nowadays it is all computerized).

He then wrote his first letter to me saying cutely that if anyone wants to become famous and rich, the thing to do is to compile and publish Tables.

I didn't realize this although, for half a century from my father's graduation from Madras Christian College with Physics as a Subsidiary subject to mine as Main from Andhra University, Clark's Mathematical and Physical Tables were as compulsory a first buy as Worsnop & Flint for our Physics Lab. The thing was slim and started with Logarithms and Antilogarithms (4-figure; there were 7-figure ones for our Spectroscopy Labs... all as extinct now as dinosaurs); and went on to Trigonometric Functions, Natural and Hyperbolic; and then to Universal Constants and Properties of solids, liquids and gases.

But Clark's Tables were rather inadequate for our Lab which required, say, the viscosity of Indian castor oil at various temperatures: a well-known experiment that fetched me good marks in my Final Year (by the way PoLtS thanks his 4th Year Lab Grade which he says made his CGPA look decent). Or surface tension of Visakhapatnam seaside tap-water at different brine concentrations.

So by our Final Year we had a new booklet of Tables by Seshadri which became very popular and perhaps made him rich and famous too. It was bulkier than Clark's and much more user-friendly although I don't know what happened to it later on...must have disappeared like the Tyrannosaurus (Google gives me the Railway Time Tables for Seshadri Express from Bangalore to Kakinada). "Clark's Tables" (within quotes) gives 1410 results...they must have gone online.

Anyway, reverting to my pen-friend, just before I left KGP I got a huge bunch of all the Dosimetry Tables ever compiled by him, accompanied by a quaint request and a form to be filled in by me seeking nomination in his favor for the upcoming Nobel in Medicine (I don't know if he got it yet).

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We now come to the well-known Time Table at Physics Department at IIT KGP for which I was the ever-unwilling In-Charge for two years during the Emergency and made many needles enemies. During my tenure 35 years ago these were hand-drawn unlike the online ones that appeared towards my end there.

I recall one amusing incident connected with TT during the brief 1-year tenure of SDM as HoD when Prof S was the TT-in-Charge.

Till then there were just 3 Final Year Electives (equal to the number of Full Profs). The 15-odd students were forced to take one or the other in equal measure such that there was no heart-burn for any of the 3 Profs, viz. 5 in each Elective (the least interesting was the most fetching....some correlation again?)

But SDM wanted to democratize the system and called for all Electives which ANY teacher wished to offer, and 3 choices from all 15 students.

With the result that there were 7 Electives offered, and 45 choices from the students, 2 sets of Free Periods and 3 available Class Rooms.

When I entered his Office one evening, SDM was quietly chuckling one of his famous chuckles. And the reason was that apparently Prof S revolted and declined to do the coveted and powerful TT-in-Chargeship anymore because he found it impossible to accommodate all choices with all the constraints imposed by the needless democratization, and dumped all the papers in SDM's lap.

And SDM told me with a gleeful smile: "He should have drawn a diagram, otherwise how can he proceed?"

And showed me his Solution to the Problem which he claimed he arrived at in 5 minutes with his SDM-Diagram (like Feynman Diagrams?).

And this from a chap who refused to have any diagram appear in any one of his Papers till I joined him and forced him to acquiesce because there was a beautiful diagram that improved the look of one of our Joint Papers by a factor of 10.

And my two crucial interactions with him were those in which he asked me to draw first an ellipse, and then a parabola!

SDM was a veritable chela of Whittaker (the one who gave all credit of Relativity to his unwilling mathematician-friend Poincare rather then the self-effacing Einstein). MSS dubbed this reluctance to include diagrams as an example of die-hard British intellectual aristocracy:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/07/get-up-please.html

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When Pratik and Aniket graciously visited us with their families this summer, Pratik told me, rather gaily, that the famous Physicist P has recently published a fat book on a famous subject without a single diagram.

I then narrated a rather vicious joke doing the rounds in our youth that P closed his Office and bolted it for an hour everyday; and one of his several almirahs was found permanently locked, unlike the others.

Fans of his rival Feynman spread the word that P used to draw Feynman Diagrams during that one hour, lock them up in this almirah, and write all his Papers using Feynman Diagrams dropping them from his manuscripts.

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I myself am like Alice who asks: "What is the use of a book that has no pictures?"


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Snakes @ IIT

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Continuing from yesterday's post: Snakes @ School, I now come to Snakes at IIT KGP.

In the 7 years at my University in between I didn't meet with any significant snakes although it was flush with trees big and small. Perhaps the ozone from the salty sea-breeze is too rich for snakes.

During my first decade at KGP when I was mostly living in the Faculty Hostel I didn't see any snakes of repute. But I used to hear that the sprawling backyards of the Staff Quarters were very cordial to them and very often they visited their kitchens and coal cellars as well.

Coal was cheap at KGP since it was a Railway Town and the goods trains that carried coal from the Coal Fields (Black Diamond) to the Steel Plant at Tatanagar were available to cognoscenti. I used to watch with pleasure wayside ladies and urchins standing by the rail line with long bamboo sticks (with hooks) download the over-topping coal of open wagons while the train was slowly running at the Puri Gate Signal.

Harry Tikka's dadu, a lean old bare-bodied bachelor hailing from the tracts of Chottogram (Chittagong) was the resident expert at snake-catching. He was always available at Harry's day and night on calls for help and he would come with his stick and bamboozle the snake into his pot and release her into the neighbor's fence at no cost at all; it was his hobby and service with a smile. You can see his framed photo at Harry's playing with his snakes.

For two decades from 1974 to 1993 I was living in the C1-97 Qrs of the famed Dandakaranya:

"....These were truly charming and full of adventure as they were peaceful-coexistence homes to serpents, jackals, rabbits. owls. giant spiders, turtle-snails, bandicoots and all species of wildlife save Man-Eating Royal Bengal Tigers displaced from Sunderbans......"

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/09/sefasa.html

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It was my habit of wintry Saturday afternoons at C1-97 to lie down and snooze on my folding cot set up in the lukewarm sun in the backyard and keep shifting the cot every hour as the sun hurtled tirelessly in his wee winter orbit and sank behind the mango tree.

In one of those siestas I heard an urgent alarm call of our squirrel from the branch of her Guava tree home but ignored it and turned the other side. A few seconds later, the resident stray dog joined the squirrel, getting up on his feet and barking furiously.

I then knew something was wrong and got down from the cot on the right side, as it turned out, and had a look at the thing that the dog and squirrel were going crazy about.

It was a long slim beautiful cobra standing upright with her lovely hood flung open and her spectacles glistening in the afternoon sun on the other side of the cot. Since I read Jim Corbett's Jungle Lore by then, I knew that she must have been disturbed from her winter hibernation.

I came to attention at once and stood stock still. Sensing the commotion, she also stood angrily still, with her great hood up and her long and wiry split tongue flashing like so many forked lightnings. Our silent encounter must have lasted no more than half a minute though it looked like eternity then. Assured that she was under no threat of attack from anyone, she slo...wly decommissioned her hood, turned back, and slithered into our fence in a flash.

That was a most graceful retreat, though my heart was pounding like a hammer.

The surprising thing was that the drama repeated itself faithfully on 2 successive Saturday afternoons; but no more.

And then there was my friend of bachelorhood, the huge 7 ft Dhamin (rat snake) that used to run fearlessly in our part of Dandakaranya. Dhamins are among the fastest of leaping snakes, absolutely non-poisonous, and serve an ecological purpose, ridding the jungle of excessive rodents. No one kills them: just say 'hi' and he would take himself off elsewhere on his eco-mission.

But when my son was about a year old, one morning at 9, I found our friendly neighborhood Dhamin snug in our bedroom sliding along the corner of its western wall. Fortunately my son was busy sitting on his mummy's tummy on another guest cot in the Hall and teasing her playfully just as Ishani does now on his tummy.

I quickly moved into the Hall, asked my wife not to get down, closed the connecting door, bolted it, armed myself with the massive 3 foot-long wooden cross-piece that acted as an extra door-bolt, and entered the bedroom determined to kill our unwelcome guest.

I regretted the decision later but at that moment there were no qualms. The reason was simple: if my wife sees him in her bedroom she would instantly die of massive heart attack; such was his length and girth.

It was a long-drawn but equal battle in which he finally went down the valiant victim and I hurt my foot while chasing him out into the garden taking one of my own nasty mis-hits on my toe which sort of got squashed, painfully disfigured, infected; and took vengeful years to completely heal.

I salute his valor; but milady's boudoirs are barred to Dhami snakes. He must have been chasing a sneaky rat, lost his way, climbed the back-stairs, and landed up in our bedroom. But a Repeat Guest Entry would have been catastrophic for the family.

Either it was him or my wife; a Hobson's Choice.

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Jim Corbett from Jungle Lore:

"....In India twenty thousand people die each year of snake-bite. Of these twenty thousand, I believe only half die of snake poison; the other half die of shock or fright, or a combination of the two, from non-poisonous snakes......In most villages in India there are men who are credited with being able to cure people bitten by snakes. As only some ten percent of the snakes in India are poisonous, these men build up their great reputation for themselves. They give their services free and do a good work among the poor, for though they cannot with their nostrums and charms cure anyone who has received a lethal dose of snake poison, they do save many people bitten by non-poisonous snakes, by infusing them with courage and confidence".

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Along the Coromandel Coast of AP has been running the hoary Madras-Howrah Mail for more than a century. There is a small town called Sullurpet, in which once lived in our boyhood a Railway Clerk called affectionately: "Pamula Narasaiah" (Snakes Man-Lion, literally).

Whenever anyone living in villages along the 1500 km railway line got bitten by a snake, all his friends and relatives have to do was to carry the shocked victim to the nearest Railway Station and ask the ASM to please send a telegram to Pamula Narasiah at Sullurpet. The ASM would oblige with the Railway Communication Network. Within a few minutes, there would be a return telegram informing that Narasaiah tied his magic upper cloth to the holy tree in the backyard of his Railway Quarters.

On being informed of this comforting message, the victim would slowly get up on his feet and start walking back to his hut, with a song on his lips.

Hats off to Narasaiahs for their Free and Prompt Service!


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Snakes @ School

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Towards the end of yesterday's post, snakes crawled into my blog (after a long gap).

The above sentence reminds me of a time in March when fish were swimming into it. These fishy posts so troubled the heart of the Israeli-Desert-Based friend of Aniket, SG, that he wrote pleadingly to Aniket:

"....could u pls ask GPS not to turn so "fishy" on his blog? it's so tantalizing....out there he mentions hilsa, chingri and what not, with great abhor, and here I have to content myself with humus and falafel....."

So then on I had to debar fish whenever possible (mainly because he had said that these blogs remind him of Ruskin Bond; for a change, from shopworn RKN)

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But snakes are ok I guess, although Google tells me that rattle snakes are a delicacy in California, forget Far East.

As I was saying, yesterday I wrote, talking of Dorothy Parker's charming picture:

"....The filament of smoke from the fag goes snaking up like a cobra with her pen's venomous nib as its head......"

So here I go talking about the snakes that have entered my life.

The first snake that I saw at 3 was spotted by a widow on the lookout: it was a green snake on a green tree and launched me on my glorious career of unrepenting lies. Vinit ranks it his third best blog:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2009/10/seven-ages-of-lying-man.html

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The seaside Village Muthukur where I had my schooling was sandy and didn't have too many species of snakes. But had many tiny water-snakes, absolutely non-poisonous, and practically defenseless against groups of kids that cornered them with stones.

Kids in a bunch tend to be merciless. One leads and the rest follow the Leader till they face the music, get punished, sometimes rusticated for an year or two, if not jailed, in the prime of their later youth.

The seeds are sown in schools.

The equally harmless slim green snakes that climb trees and heights and always looked forlorn were very kind to us in our school:

The lower classes (barring the final and semifinal years) had no pucca classrooms. There were just two long sheds partitioned by mobile walls made of 'hole-y' thatched doors on wheels. It was the duty of Class Monitors to move them hither or thither depending on the need of the moment under the supervision of the two quarreling teachers on either side.

Each shed had a high ceiling which was covered by a dome of rotting bamboos and palm fronds and dried coconut leaves and stacks of hay, all held together by coconut fiber ropes (every village was self-sufficient as I described elsewhere).

There was a blackboard in each classroom on a mobile slanting mount; but few teachers except the unfortunate Maths Teacher had any use for it. The others told stories, gabbed, dictated and wielded the cane.

All boys of the lower classes happily squatted on the sandy floor. The ladies were provided with a few posh mats made of intertwining palm leaves, but many preferred the homely sand.

There were always a couple of 'back-benchers' expert at snake-spotting. The mandate given to them by the Monitor was to look out for green snakes crawling on the high roof. As soon as one of the foolish snakes was spotted, there would be a shout: "snake! snake!! snake!!!" followed unanimously by "where?, where??. where???"; and in a few moments there would be pandemonium. The Teacher had to satisfy himself that it was no lark; the expert from the 'back bench' would then come forward, snatch the Teacher's proprietary cane and point to the goofy snake who was so startled by the noise that he would halt in his slow tracks and stare down dumbly with questioning eyes.

The Teacher would be scared that the nervous snake would lose his head as well as his hold and drop down on the back of his shirt. So he would lead the entire class outdoors and call for the peon, who would come with his long 3-tier bamboo stick, launch it up and expertly let the snake climb onto it, bring him down and let him go up a neighboring tree.

By then a good half hour would have been spent usefully, till the Teacher reassembles his students and asks: "Where were we?" and try to resume his dictation: "Fourthly, Emperor Ashoka dug roadside wells......"; but finds the spell of Ashoka broke; and would 'Announce Games'.

The HM (my father) would then come for his Inspection and order relaying of the entire roof of the shed with more of the same (due to budgetary constraints) and call for quotations. The bids would have to be opened by the DEO who would find so many loopholes in the processing that fresh estimates would have to be approved and quotations called for again; by which time a couple of years would pass by and we would be in the prefinal year, shifting to the pucca rooms with a 'cemented' roof; and lose all interest in studies.

The other village Atmakur where we stayed earlier for a brief year was rocky, hilly, dry and had a plethora of snake species including the deadly cobra and krait.

Indeed on the very night when my father joined duties and was allotted an abandoned huge Government Bungalow due to shortage of rented houses, my mother was about to step on a hissing resident cobra in the makeshift Kitchen.

With the help of the local 'expert' tribal snake-catcher the cobra was captured after he immobilized her with his forked stick latching onto the snake's neck, gripping her by her tail, holding her upside down at arm's length, easing her into his pot and quickly closing the lid.

We kids were ordered to keep away bolted in a side room, but only my mother missed the Show.

The snake-catcher took away his cobra as well as Rs 10: as unjust an arrangement as the barber taking away my precious hair as well as Rs 50 in Hyderabad.

I suspect he released his cobra into some other frightened lady's kitchen whenever he was short of cash for his toddy.

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Post Script: Optional

I am told that Srinivas's sons, Sri Charan (Class XII) and Uma Varun (Class X) fight for who would first get hold of the Ishani booklets I send. Samit also reports that his son in Class XII enjoys them.

These tall tales I tell are meant for kids like them. If adults read them it is just because they are transported to their school life. That is why I am pleased that SG mentions Ruskin Bond. I first met Ruskin Bond in my son's Class X Reader in a story about an umbrella stealer. I recall writing a booklet Raadhaa Rhymes in simple words. I am unhappy that I can't find simpler words and often escape with a tougher one. But kids are specialists in getting the meaning of a new word if the context is clear.

Pratik once told me that, unlike modern stories which are based on dialogue, my stories have hardly any dialogue. That is because 'just' dialogue is for adults with a well-developed intellect which I don't pretend to have. Throughout my life I dealt with 18-year-olds and so never grew up (as Aniket admits). For decades, first years entering IIT nervously would meet gps in a Lecture or Lab and feel relieved. That was my business there.

Kids excel in pictures which can be seen. The whole Passing Show is new to them. When I look back on my school life, it is all pictures (say of snakes on the ceiling). I try to render them into words. Kids who read them render them back into pictures they can easily relate to and are happy.

RKN and Hemingway have been accused and ridiculed by their 'modern' contemporaries that their books don't demand dictionaries. RKN never cared to respond to criticism (he was too busy) but Hemingway said famously: "Big words don't necessarily mean Big emotions".


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Bookache

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When a man turns old (no one GROWS old) and has ample leisure to dream (preferably on an empty stomach), his dreams tend to return to his boyhood (I don't know about women; my wife says she never dreams).

This is most vividly described in that Nobel-Winning Long Poem: The Old Man and the Sea............

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".......He was asleep in a short time and he dreamed of Africa when he was a boy and the long golden beaches and the white beaches, so white they hurt your eyes, and the high capes and the great brown mountains...........and then he dreamed of the different harbors and roadsteads of the Canary Islands. He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them..................."

Courtesy: http://www.asiaing.com/the-old-man-and-the-sea.html

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For five years as a boy I lived in a seaside Village and then for another seven years as a teenager in a seaside Town. There were no lions on my beaches but there was sand alright...enough sand to light up the sunny Village and the Town for decades if only one could get its silicon out with enough purity.

If you live by the Sea that long, you get to know all its moods more than you know the moods of your thirty-year-life-partner.

Well, I am not going to talk of Sea but of Books now (Sea can wait; it isn't easily torn apart or sold as raddi).

The Old Man realizes that there has been a first in his long life for every ache, every lie, every sin, every bliss and every defeat. They are special. There will be many more later in each set but they don't count. As I said in my Seven Ages of (Lying) Man, they are pure routine:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2009/10/seven-ages-of-lying-man.html

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As I relive my school days, as you know I often do, I recall my first good English Reader in Class VIII. As I said in Get-Up Please!, it was a very well got-up book with a fascinating Cover Picture of the Coromandel Coast (sea-beach again with swinging palm trees):

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/07/get-up-please.html

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The first lesson was: "Tuck's Dream".

Tuck is this small playful naughty boy in a new big school, and the night before his first Exam, he didn't have time enough to read the last lesson in his school book. As he vaguely recalls from his Class it was a tiny travelogue in Egypt. That was all he knew about it.

He gets sleepy and scared and hides the book under his pillow before falling asleep. As you can guess, a Fairy duly appears in his dream and flies Tuck on a sky-ride to all those places in the lesson narrating all about them. (And there was this picture of the 'Exam Fairy' carrying Tuck in the skies on her wings in the book). Very like the 'Tooth Fairy' legend.

And next day the lesson is in his Question Paper; Tuck writes it well and scores high.

As you can guess again, from then on till now I always have a book under my pillow or beside it. And if it is beside the pillow, like Jogia's sumptuous gift of the American Edition of Thurber Album has been for the last 5 years, I hide it under the mattress as soon as I see nine-month-old Ishani being launched on my bed on her biblio-lacero spree. I let her tear to her heart's content some other available books like my Tall Tales for Ishani, of which I have a few extra copies tucked away in our Godrej Almirah, supposedly for her chewing later in life.

And the last lesson in our Coromandel Reader was the poem I talked of so many times: Rainbow by Christina Rosetti. I didn't care much for the poem, but the haunting picture that accompanied it of a sole boatman on a rippling river ferrying his boat under a designer bridge with a shiny multi-colored rainbow spanning Heaven and Earth.

During every 4-month monsoon season at KGP there were at least half a dozen glorious rainbows which many miss. But I was outdoors most of the time enjoying the KGP monsoon skies, either under the Canteen Mango Tree or on Harry's Cement Bench or in my armchair in the verandah of B-140 and I never missed the Evening 5 O'clock Rainbow Show.

And that always took me back to my Coromandel Reader.

And after I was promoted to Class IX, my younger sister and then her sister and then hers....inherited the book for their use.

Till I returned from College one day and was looking for it.

I was coolly told that a newer and much better book has been prescribed that year and my old and frayed Coromandel Reader has been sold to the Raddiwala.

That was my first heartache and also first bookache.

Can a new book (or a new baby) serve as replacement for the older one sold to the Raddiwala?

Can anyone PLEASE get me back my old Coromandel Reader (the one I fondled and dandled)?

I can pay my one-month pension. For an unemployed pensioner without private means that is something!

RKN was wiser. He says he kept his favorite Nelson Reader (away from his youngest brother RKL?) for 40 years and fondles and dandles it once in every while.

And he too must have been hiding it under his mattress whenever his Ishani (Minnie) was launched on his bed!

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Just now my Binder's boy delivered my 40-year-old Dorothy Parker. I had covered the Penguin Paperback firmly with a brown paper and I had no clue yesterday what the original cover looked like. The Binder unwrapped and threw away the brown-paper and covered the newly bound copy with its intact Penguin Cover.

O Great! Now I recall; it has this lovely picture of this undying fan of Hemingway with a fag in its long holder (popular in the 70s when the Penguin thing was brought out). The filament of smoke from the fag goes snaking up like a cobra with her pen's venomous nib as its head. The book has 600 pages, now turned brown and fragile, and must have cost me less than Rs 10.

The Binder did a fantastic job for a well-deserved Rs 100.

Give it to Hyderabad....you can get Quality (if you have the moolah)


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