Before becoming the greatest Sanskrit Poet and Dramatist, Kalidas was reputed to be a woodcutter (quite an orthogonal profession). He was found cutting a branch sitting on its far side, axing it, falling down with the branch, getting up and proceeding to cut the next.
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Myself and my friend N once visited Chaitanyashram at KGP to make a small donation. The regular clerk was on leave and so a swamijee was asked to give us the Receipt. He came down with a flourish to the table, opened the Receipt Book, inserted the carbon paper deftly, wrote on the top page with a ball pen, tore out the top page and handed it to us. And then discovered that the carbon copy was blank. It was a sight to watch his perplexed face till my friend discovered that the 'mirror copy' came out wonderfully on the reverse of his 'original'. And N had to explain to the bewildered swamijee that he inserted the carbon paper the wrong side up.
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The day we moved to our new apartment on the 13th floor here, I noticed that the breeze was so terrific like a mighty gale that the massive front door closed with such a bang that I was scared it would break in two. And li'l Ishani liked to stand in the doorway with her li'l fingers on the doorstep...So, I ran at once to a nearby hardware store and bought a cute 'door-stopper', a device that acts like a hydraulic shock absorber. And the shopkeeper sent a novice to fix it. He came down, took one hour to figure it out and another to fix it, like uncle Podger. And when he jubilantly completed his work and started to test it, he found that it was acting like a 'door-accelerator'...the door closed faster and with an even bigger bang. My son had to tell him that the chap nailed its two parts the wrong way round...the clamp to the door and the brake to the jamb!
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Let me boast a little...That was the decade when the first Black and White TVs arrived in the KGP market. My friend bought the latest fancy thing that was dubbed a 'hybrid-model'. IC chips were unknown then and the thing had red-hot vacuum tubes for the high tension part and transistors for the audio and video circuits. One day the picture suddenly started appearing 'double' on the monitor. The 'mechanic' came down, opened the sprawling 'circuit diagram' and started measuring painstakingly the voltages everywhere and comparing them with the 'standard' ones. And got lost for half an hour. I took over and inspected the diagram and discovered that in the vertical frequency generator there were two tiny capacitors in parallel (the manufacturer didn't happen to have a 20 pf cap and so he twisted two 10 pf ones together as a substitute). I then asked the young guy to test the two caps saying one of them must have gone phut..and so it was!
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There is a cute picture in today's DC of the Merchant Vessel MV Wisdom languishing in the placid sands of the Juhu Beach to the merriment of onlookers. Turned out that while she was being towed to Alang in Gujerat for dismantling, the rope gave and she landed at Juhu. The tow-ers must be cousins of sleepy Jerome, George and Harris inspired by the delightful yelps of Montmorency.
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Tailpiece
This young and fretful lover residing in the Boys Hostel of a certain Institution scaled the wall of the Girls Hostel one night at 10 PM and landed in the waiting arms of his love who discreetly led him to her single room.
Girls being girls, the news spread like wild fire and there were punching knocks every five minutes at the frustrated closed door till daybreak when the boy slipped out wearing the girl's lehenga and dupatta like some Baba lately.
There were roaring complaints and the Chairman HCC called a DC Meeting and the sinning couple were produced by the Lady Warden. The girl was hanging her head in suppressed mirth while the boy looked nonchalant.
The Chairman (like gps) was a kind soul, particularly to erring kids.
He rebuked the boy soundly and asked him:
"Don't you know that boys are forbidden to spend nights in Girls Hostel?"
"No"
"Yes, there is a rule like that! Since you seem to be ignorant, you are let out with a stern warning"
"Thank you!"
And the Chairman beamed at a job well done.
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