As I said the other day, monsoon has arrived in AP, covering all of it and bringing cheer to one and all, especially the farming community who were awaiting the rains with bated breath to start their tilling operations with gusto and fanfare.
And there was this piquant news item with color photo of a Senior Politician (SP) getting kicked viciously on his chest by an otherwise tame bullock. SP was knocked down, picked up by his admirers promptly and escaped with minor bruises cheerfully (nothing compared to being 'shoed' by even more vicious premeditated journalists).
Apparently SP was invited to a farm festival to inaugurate the ceremonial plowing in a rural setting; and SP brandished to the crowd his rural upbringing by patting one of the two bullocks harnessed to the ceremonial plow on his (bullock's) hind parts; and he (the bullock) didn't take it kindly.
The explanation of the unexpected kick that was dished out to the press was that the bullock was hassled and annoyed by the politicking crowd.
But it happens in life all the time...the humble and the docile can take only that much and no more.
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RKN wrote a famous eulogy to the saintly donkey in which he avers:
"Its kick is supposed to be lethal, but I shall not accept the view until I hear someone speak of it from first-hand experience, either as a sight-seer or a near victim".
Well, RKN spent his formative years in Madras and Mysore instead of my Muthukur which had as many donkeys as cows spending most of their time on the sandy bank of our Village Tank.
I did watch with lots of amusement our rowdy school seniors getting kicked pretty viciously while they were trying to molest unsuspecting donkeys...but I must say some of the experts did succeed...
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During his decade in the Phy Dept at IIT KGP, SDM was the most misunderstood man...only HNB, DB and myself knew and condoned his eccentric ways...others mostly left him alone as he did them.
Except for the year when he most unwisely accepted Headship to "prove that for a Theoretical Physicist administration is child's play".
There was this Prof K who was the most gentle, urbane and suave Physicist I knew and who bowed and smiled to one and all cheerfully and admitted rather candidly that he was a 'zero' in Physics except in his specialization which happened to be Dielectrics.
One evening as I was entering SDM's Office, Prof K was coming out banging the door behind him and smiling at me rather triumphantly.
And as I entered and took my seat, I was struck by the dazed look on SDM's face as if he was kicked by that molested donkey of my school years.
For a good 5 minutes SDM kept unusually quiet and broke his silence asking:
"You know Prof K well...what has gone wrong with him today?"
And then we talked about the Referee Report on our Paper; but SDM was clearly in no mood to genially crack a couple of jokes at the Referee's plight.
The next day, Prof K met me in the Canteen and told me his story, recalling the event a fortnight ago when SDM and I were talking in the corridor about the limit of the permittivity (epsilon) of a dielectric as the frequency (omega) tends to infinity.
I told SDM that it is mentioned in Landau & Lifschiz that it tends to unity and he agreed.
Prof K happened to be passing by and bowed to both of us genially but was stopped by SDM who asked:
"You are an expert in dielectrics...tell us what happens to epsilon as omega tends to infinity"
Prof K was unprepared and blurted:
"It can tend to anything".
Upon which SDM smiled his vicious smile and let it go.
Apparently, during the next fortnight, SDM repeated the question, got the same answer and gave the same smile whenever he met Prof K on the corridor.
Prof K didn't know that with SDM it was a reflex action...he was completely unaware that he was repeating the sequence endlessly.
Finally on that fateful evening Prof K had to see SDM in his Office to get one of his Project Papers signed; and as he was signing them, SDM repeated:
"You are an expert in dielectrics...tell us what happens to epsilon as omega tends to infinity?"
Then shit hit the fan...
Prof K told me that he was rather expecting this question and fully rehearsed his answer, which was a vituperative 5 minute abuse of all that was unbecoming in the crude and notorious behavior of SDM from his Calcutta days and challenging him angrily to draw the Cole-Cole Plot.
As I said, one should never take anyone for granted, however nice they happen to be.
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Men, Women & Statistics
"London: Men begin thinking about professing their love 97.3 days into a relationship, says a new study. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, however, said men who press their love early in a relationship are 'not to be trusted'. Women actually prefer it when males wait to get serious, the Daily Mail reported. The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, questioned 45 men and women"...IANS
Take your time please, no hurry!
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