Chalega!

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Over the past few days I have been reading every word of every obituary of Steve Jobs that came my way; and wondering.

Unlike me, my son is a gizmo-freak and a music addict. The first thing he brought from his US visits was what he called an i-pod. He tried to fix its earphones on me and played what he called an 'energy music' (like that 'dhantana' thing). But of course the whole exercise reminded me of the Hindi saying: "Bhains ke aage been bajana"

A couple of years later, he got married; a good 9 months after his engagement. And he showed me the first gift he got from his beloved...an i-pod, but half its earlier size.

The other day the electrical induction heating stove I gifted my wife conked off. And I wanted to buy her a brand new replacement. Hearing which my son asked me: "Why don't you gift me an i-phone? I have been stuck with this Nokia - E60 for the past couple of years"

That is all the interface I had with Steve till the other day.

The obits were moving; Uncle Tom even went to the extent of wistfully wishing that someone like Steve would be at the helm of the White House.

Steve Jobs is a typical American phenomenon.

Will there be a Steve in India?

Most unlikely, I beg your pardon. We don't have a 'clash of civilizations' with anyone...we are the Thermodynamic Sink of all civilizations that ended up here. It is our climate and geography. Even the British never had stomach for conquering the whole country. After the first few winning skirmishes they preferred to use their wile and guile and left about 550 Rajas intact as their stooges and asked them only to pay the lagaan in time; and retired to Simla.

Edwin at MIT and me at IIT KGP had an unending exchange of mails over two decades spelling out the 'contrast of our cultures'.

West is extrovert...we are introvert. They gaze deep at the stars, while we gaze at our navels.

If Charles Darwin were born in Muthukur when he did, all the travel he did would have been to Nellore 12 miles away in a double-bullock cart. He sure would have noticed all the species of pigeons on his way, but would have written soulful poetry about them...did we not have a PM (my favorite) who wrote poetry on a boating holiday in the backwaters of our God's Own Country? When did a poet rule the US last? I have to check. And a philosopher as our President. Well, we did have a rocket scientist there, but he was most uncomfortable in his bandh-gala.

While Steve was making gadgets that would make people fall in love for them without 'needing' them urgently; Gandhijee was shedding himself of things which others thought they badly needed. From his suit and boot in the railway carriage at Pietermaritzburg to the loin cloth when he was shot half a century later, it had been for him a veritable strip-tease: to see what he could do without.

For the record, I never bought a wrist-watch. And, mind you, my profession was strictly guided by timing...if I were a minute late, there would be pandemonium in the rowdy Second Year B Tech Class near the Diro's Office.

When I got my job as a faculty member at IIT KGP in 1965, my Father thought it was a big deal and gifted me a tiny third-hand Favre-Leuba watch. My friend borrowed it to his Ph D Viva that went very well. And his friend did the same. It served me well till I got married in 1979, when my B-i-L gifted me a brand new digital watch bought in Melbourne. It was too heavy and croaked within a month and I was back to my tiny Favre-Leuba. In 1990 I got a Titan day-date watch as a gift from IIT KGP for 'serving' her faithfully for 25 years. That worked well for the next 20 years. The Favre-Leuba thing was still going strong and my wife and then my son were using it off and on. The other day the IIT thing was given up for good by the watch-repairer and my son gifted me a new watch...

My Father used the wrist-watch he got in his wedding as a gift till he gave up wearing watches...

This story underlines the 'chalega' spirit of our nation. Why waste money on a new device when you can get it repaired? In Chintalbasthi, there is a shop run by half a dozen kids who can repair any cell phone made anywhere in the world...including your i-phone, Saswatjee!

My Friend (the one who borrowed my watch for his Viva) gifted me a copy of Webster's New World Collegiate Dictionary in 1967. It is still there in my bookshelf and I do use it whenever I am not on the net. I never bought a dictionary in my life...

I am not trying to prove anything here.

Compared with DB, I am the gizmo-freak. Listen to what Aniket wrote the other day in response to the post:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/06/revenge-of-lo-tech.html

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Dear Sir,

I have a few days off this week. Consequently, I get to read your posts early in the morning again, as I used to earlier.

"Revenge of Lo-Tech" ranks probably as one of your best posts, but judging by the title you chose for it, I cannot help wondering if you didn't have a story about DB as well.

As was well-known in the department, his login and password were identical. When he replaced his password to some string of numbers he had carefully chosen, one day he still could not log in after many efforts and summoned me for help. I noticed that instead of the number keys he was punching the function keys that adorn the top of the keyboard.

Sincerely,

Aniket

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