*******************************************************************************************************************
This is about the BBS Theory: Beg, Borrow, Steal.
Suppose you don't have an Umbrella or Book or Cigarette and you desperately need one.
Then you can resort to BBS.
I have myself been involved in all these (3 X 3=9) incidents off and on in my Life.
Regarding Umbrellas it is perfectly justified in resorting to BBS. No one would accuse you of a criminal offense if you are stranded in pouring rain and forgot to bring your own umbrella, if you have one.
Indeed Psmith (P-silent) robbed Honorable Mr Walderwick of his silk umbrella on a sudden chivalrous impulse to gift it to Eve Halliday stranded across the street outside Drone's Club; and Walderwick couldn't as much as protest vehemently...Beauty vs Beast!.
Of books the less said the better. No one has any sinister motive in Begging, Borrowing or Stealing a good Book (or Blog) except for reading it; other than Hyderabad Raddiwalas who help pulpify RKN's Ramayan and transmogrify it into the Holy Bible. And in these philistine times reading is something to be encouraged; and the Judge will dismiss the case outright (if he read anything readable at all other than his Law Tomes...our own Autocrat gave up a promising career in Law and shifted to Medicine and Writing for healing bodies and minds respectively).
Finally in Intellectual Circles such as College Street Coffee Houses and Algonquin Round Tables any attempt to as much as claim ownership to Cigarettes calls for outright expulsion from the Charmed Circle.
But not Money, the filthy lucre.....
The Hyderabad Raddiwala would be hard-pressed to apply Direct Conversion Technique to transmogrify one of his Books into an Umbrella.
But not ME!!!
I just have to carry in style, say, the Silk Umbrella I stole from Shop # 5 to Shop #101 in the Flea Market, sell it, draw the Cash and buy a Second Hand Copy of 'Leave It to Psmith' at Shop #35 and a packet of Passing Show Cigarettes at Shop # 62....a great bargain any day.
The magic is done via Liquid Cash.
I salute whoever first applied Liquid to qualify Cash as a Master-Verbifier. It is so apt: The unique feature of Liquids is that they take the shape of the vessel into which you pour them. And all Liquids flow...from upstream to downstream if you don't dam them and damn our Ecosystem.
It is precisely this convenience that forbids you from safely applying the BBS Theory to Money: Don't blame me if you get spat upon, beaten up and jailed, respectively, if you do BBS to as tiny an amount as Rs 1000.
And this is also why there is a tinge of shame (not conscience which is irrelevant) even if you escape punishment. I mean if you are not a hardcore professional.
IIT Kharagpur, 1970:
I happened to get my First Paper accepted by the venerable American Journal of Physics.
Just then AJP, like most Journals published by the American Physical Society (APS) went broke (again don't blame me alone!). So, she refused to quickly publish my Virgin Paper (there were a few more kids later on) unless I shell down $ 40, equivalent to a whopping Rs 200 as Publication Charges if I wanted 100 Free Reprints, which in my foolishness I happened to want. When the bundle arrived my joy knew no bounds. But there was no one to whom I could give them away except my Father who, as expected, pointed out a few prepositional flaws. No Reprint Request ever came from any corner of this Philistine Physics World. Ultimately the entire bundle had to be sold recently to the Hyderabad Raddiwala who promised to transmogrify them into Ishani Booklets (as great a bargain as ever!).
But I digress:
First I didn't have Rs 200. Then, even if I applied the BBS Theory and got hold of Liquid Cash, there was no way I could convert them into $ 40, the Foreign Exchange Crunch of Nehruvian Socialism being what it was.
During the late 1960s there was a friend of mine, NG, living in our Faculty Hostel, hailing from my native town Nellore. By 1970 he shifted as Lecturer to a nice College in the US, earning precious dollars.
So I wrote to him if he could kindly adjust $ 40 to AJP promising him that I would adjust Rs 200 to his father at Nellore as soon as I get hold of Rs 200.
NG was the Soul of Magnanimity: He didn't reply to my mail, but to my surprise, I got my Dream Packet of useless 100 Reprints within a month.
To the couple of Air Mail letters (quite expensive) I wrote to him thanking him and seeking his father's Nellore address, I got back just his latest color photos (undreamt of in India).
I forgot all about it till 1975 when my Economy turned somewhat buoyant and surprsingly I did have 2 crisp Hundred Rupee Notes in my pocket (one of those sudden wage revisions).
The lurking shame in me woke up and I wrote to NG again reminding him of my debt of gratitude which I badly wanted to redeem.
But no reply: Addressee Unknown. He must have shifted someplace else in the vast Wonderland of America.
On my next trip to Nellore I was determined to hunt NG's father and unload those two currency notes before they evaporate (liquids do!).
The only clue I had was that NGs lived in Santhapet, a sprawling market area.
Ultimately after 4 hours of hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack I reached the door of NGs who shifted somewhere else after 2 or 3 more shifts to a rather posh area, courtesy NG's Dollars.
I knocked at the door and an old lady (obviously NG's mother) peeped half her head out and asked what I wanted. I said I wanted to talk to NG's father. "What about?" "I am NG's friend". She was practically shutting the door on my face mumbling that there is one new friend of NG knocking every other day to get NG's address to pester him sponsor his studies in the US.
I held the door with my bare foot and said: "I don't want to go to America (I Love My India)".
She relented and went in to fetch her husband, who came out with a disgusted look on his face.
I took out the two crisp Hundred Rupee Notes from my pocket, pushed them into his hands, mumbling that I owe this filthy lucre to NG; and walked away.
In a few seconds, a sweet little girl ran to me and pulling at my shirt sleeves said: "Mother asked me to fetch you".
She was so cute and so full of mirth that I couldn't refuse..................
...Posted by Ishani
***********************************************************************************************************
This is about the BBS Theory: Beg, Borrow, Steal.
Suppose you don't have an Umbrella or Book or Cigarette and you desperately need one.
Then you can resort to BBS.
I have myself been involved in all these (3 X 3=9) incidents off and on in my Life.
Regarding Umbrellas it is perfectly justified in resorting to BBS. No one would accuse you of a criminal offense if you are stranded in pouring rain and forgot to bring your own umbrella, if you have one.
Indeed Psmith (P-silent) robbed Honorable Mr Walderwick of his silk umbrella on a sudden chivalrous impulse to gift it to Eve Halliday stranded across the street outside Drone's Club; and Walderwick couldn't as much as protest vehemently...Beauty vs Beast!.
Of books the less said the better. No one has any sinister motive in Begging, Borrowing or Stealing a good Book (or Blog) except for reading it; other than Hyderabad Raddiwalas who help pulpify RKN's Ramayan and transmogrify it into the Holy Bible. And in these philistine times reading is something to be encouraged; and the Judge will dismiss the case outright (if he read anything readable at all other than his Law Tomes...our own Autocrat gave up a promising career in Law and shifted to Medicine and Writing for healing bodies and minds respectively).
Finally in Intellectual Circles such as College Street Coffee Houses and Algonquin Round Tables any attempt to as much as claim ownership to Cigarettes calls for outright expulsion from the Charmed Circle.
But not Money, the filthy lucre.....
The Hyderabad Raddiwala would be hard-pressed to apply Direct Conversion Technique to transmogrify one of his Books into an Umbrella.
But not ME!!!
I just have to carry in style, say, the Silk Umbrella I stole from Shop # 5 to Shop #101 in the Flea Market, sell it, draw the Cash and buy a Second Hand Copy of 'Leave It to Psmith' at Shop #35 and a packet of Passing Show Cigarettes at Shop # 62....a great bargain any day.
The magic is done via Liquid Cash.
I salute whoever first applied Liquid to qualify Cash as a Master-Verbifier. It is so apt: The unique feature of Liquids is that they take the shape of the vessel into which you pour them. And all Liquids flow...from upstream to downstream if you don't dam them and damn our Ecosystem.
It is precisely this convenience that forbids you from safely applying the BBS Theory to Money: Don't blame me if you get spat upon, beaten up and jailed, respectively, if you do BBS to as tiny an amount as Rs 1000.
And this is also why there is a tinge of shame (not conscience which is irrelevant) even if you escape punishment. I mean if you are not a hardcore professional.
IIT Kharagpur, 1970:
I happened to get my First Paper accepted by the venerable American Journal of Physics.
Just then AJP, like most Journals published by the American Physical Society (APS) went broke (again don't blame me alone!). So, she refused to quickly publish my Virgin Paper (there were a few more kids later on) unless I shell down $ 40, equivalent to a whopping Rs 200 as Publication Charges if I wanted 100 Free Reprints, which in my foolishness I happened to want. When the bundle arrived my joy knew no bounds. But there was no one to whom I could give them away except my Father who, as expected, pointed out a few prepositional flaws. No Reprint Request ever came from any corner of this Philistine Physics World. Ultimately the entire bundle had to be sold recently to the Hyderabad Raddiwala who promised to transmogrify them into Ishani Booklets (as great a bargain as ever!).
But I digress:
First I didn't have Rs 200. Then, even if I applied the BBS Theory and got hold of Liquid Cash, there was no way I could convert them into $ 40, the Foreign Exchange Crunch of Nehruvian Socialism being what it was.
During the late 1960s there was a friend of mine, NG, living in our Faculty Hostel, hailing from my native town Nellore. By 1970 he shifted as Lecturer to a nice College in the US, earning precious dollars.
So I wrote to him if he could kindly adjust $ 40 to AJP promising him that I would adjust Rs 200 to his father at Nellore as soon as I get hold of Rs 200.
NG was the Soul of Magnanimity: He didn't reply to my mail, but to my surprise, I got my Dream Packet of useless 100 Reprints within a month.
To the couple of Air Mail letters (quite expensive) I wrote to him thanking him and seeking his father's Nellore address, I got back just his latest color photos (undreamt of in India).
I forgot all about it till 1975 when my Economy turned somewhat buoyant and surprsingly I did have 2 crisp Hundred Rupee Notes in my pocket (one of those sudden wage revisions).
The lurking shame in me woke up and I wrote to NG again reminding him of my debt of gratitude which I badly wanted to redeem.
But no reply: Addressee Unknown. He must have shifted someplace else in the vast Wonderland of America.
On my next trip to Nellore I was determined to hunt NG's father and unload those two currency notes before they evaporate (liquids do!).
The only clue I had was that NGs lived in Santhapet, a sprawling market area.
Ultimately after 4 hours of hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack I reached the door of NGs who shifted somewhere else after 2 or 3 more shifts to a rather posh area, courtesy NG's Dollars.
I knocked at the door and an old lady (obviously NG's mother) peeped half her head out and asked what I wanted. I said I wanted to talk to NG's father. "What about?" "I am NG's friend". She was practically shutting the door on my face mumbling that there is one new friend of NG knocking every other day to get NG's address to pester him sponsor his studies in the US.
I held the door with my bare foot and said: "I don't want to go to America (I Love My India)".
She relented and went in to fetch her husband, who came out with a disgusted look on his face.
I took out the two crisp Hundred Rupee Notes from my pocket, pushed them into his hands, mumbling that I owe this filthy lucre to NG; and walked away.
In a few seconds, a sweet little girl ran to me and pulling at my shirt sleeves said: "Mother asked me to fetch you".
She was so cute and so full of mirth that I couldn't refuse..................
...Posted by Ishani
***********************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment