Flexilogic

==================================================================

My wonderful mom (89) is a Believer. Don't ask in what? It is not important. She is just a sample of the many Believers...in their own logical conclusions.

Science is something and Life quite another. Feynman emphasized this unpredictability of life-size phenomena although the basic principles are well known to be classical and iron-tight. The difficulty is with Complexity...like trying to predict which way the next infalling droplet of water in Niagara would go after hitting that rock.

And of course Life is much more complex than Niagara.

**********************************************************************************************************

While winding up our establishment at KGP on retirement and shifting to the AP town Nellore, my wife suggested why not ask my Mom to fix a Muhurtam (auspicious date) for our journey.

My Mom was very pleased, looked up the Panchangam (almanac), asked our dates of birth and lagnams to take into account the Taaraa Balam and Chandra Balam and stuff and after an elaborate calculation fixed October 26 as the most auspicious date.

We booked our tickets to Nellore for that day, dispatched our Luggage Van a couple of days before the D-Day, and shifted to the Guest House after surrendering our Qrs.

That evening's news bulletin said that there was a terrific cyclone cum deluge cum disaster in the South; all trains and flights to Chennai canceled indefinitely.

On our auspicious October 26 we were holed up in the KGP Guest House, not knowing what happened to our Luggage Truck, and puzzled what to do.

Finally we flew to Hyderabad to seek shelter in my son's apartment and got stuck there for 2 good months till the railway lines to Nellore were restored belatedly.

And I lost my mind...

When next I met my Mom and confronted her with the utter failure of her Muhurtam, she was as unfazed as the staunch woman in Hawking's audience and said:

"I know you were going to ask this question. So, I looked up the almanac for October 24th on which you dispatched your Luggage Van and found that it happens to be the worst possible date in the century...Shani was right above, Mangal was crooked, and Rahu and Ketu were malign"

Feynman, happy?

************************************************************************************************************

My good friend MSS bought a brand new Rajdoot Bike in 1970 when bikes were rare on KGP roads. He was a Sardarjee and everyone knows that Sardarjees are born with a vehicle following them.

He drove his shining two-wheeler to Gole Bazaar in the best of 'spirits'.

And promptly bumped a pedestrian knocking him to the ground.

Some bruises and drops of blood.

The dadas of the mohalla gathered in no time and surrounded MSS (forgetting for the moment the groaning pedestrian).

MSS told me he thought he was in for a sound thrashing and torching of his new Rajdoot.

Suddenly a tall and smooth-talking gent pushed the jostling crowd, reached MSS and shook his hands warmly, bent down to the injured one, stood him up and asked him to touch the Sardarjee's feet, saying:

"I was watching the whole event. If it were anyone else than this Sardarjee, this fool would have been dead by now...the way he was jaywalking and running right across the road...what a a terrific driver this man is!...He swerved his bike, braked it to a screech, and managed to just brush past this drunken lout..."

So saying, he approached MSS and said sotto voce:

"Start your bike now and run, you idiot!"


===================================================================