Sentiment

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'I like the Walrus best,' said Alice: 'because you see he was a LITTLE sorry for the poor oysters.'

'He ate more than the Carpenter, though,' said Tweedledee. 'You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn't count how many he took: contrariwise.'

'That was mean!' Alice said indignantly. 'Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn't eat so many as the Walrus.'

'But he ate as many as he could get,' said Tweedledum.

.......http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12/12-h/12-h.htm#2HCH0007

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There..there...Lewis Carroll has the last word on Sentiment.

If you have lived as long as I did and as eventlessly, you will realize at the end of the Day that Life has been a series of graduations from one delusion to another.

Still and all, there is fun and pain at every stage of this Drama: Shakespeare knew it best.

However wise or otherwise you pretend to be, you are connected by visible and invisible strings to the Rest of the Universe all the time: by gravitons (?) and photons if nothing else. So feelings are inescapable even for ETs.

On the day of my quitting IIT KGP they arranged a Fond Farewell in the evening at 4.30 PM. At noon, on my way home, Prof PS, who joined a few years before I left and had as little interaction with me, happened to meet me in the corridor, excused herself from the Farewell Meeting and wished me well instead on the spot. I thanked her for her kindness. She then asked abruptly an unexpected question: "Professor Shastry, after all these decades, do you feel happy or unhappy today?". Frankly I was embarrassed and speechless, and mumbled something like: "What is the use of being unhappy...all of us should always try to be happy so we could spread a little cheer".

I was indeed quite happy that day since I would be joining my wife and son at Hyderabad after a year of loneliness, and all my folks back home after decades.

Little did I know that for 2 years then on I would be dreaming every night of nothing but KGP and for the next 3 years I would be blogging about folks there, past and present.

And I always prided myself as a no-nonsense character....Carpenter.

These thoughts are there now because I am just back from seeing off my son to his Office, where he would be getting a Farewell today after 6.5 years of his first job after IIT KGP. Subash and Anu, the couple who sat through willy-nilly 2 semesters of my Theory and 2 of Lab in their 4th year not only took him as a gesture of goodwill in their start-up, but treated him embarrassingly well all these years.

My son told me that he would ask his HR to make his exit as quiet as possible...much like I did.

Wherever he would go, I guess he wouldn't easily forget Ocimum Biosolutions, his first bread and butter...

Rest is Cash...as Americans say...

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