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The one thing my Father taught me in school (other than English) was Badminton. I became not only the school champion but also represented our school as the 'Center' in the Griggs Memorial Tournament at the RSR High School in Nellore where we were beaten but not bruised.
Reading 'Badminton' you may think it is the "Shuttle Badminton" played by the ruling Bollywood Star (the dot-product of the Champion) who I watched on screen playing the thing while dancing like a duck in flames...repulsive to the core...I mean you either dance or play games...you can't do both...not done.
The Badminton we had at school was called "Ball Badminton" because it was played with a ball and not the feathers of a duck-chick plucked from its left wing only as Wiki tells me...why left wing, it doesn't say.
The ball we played with was about half the size of a tennis ball in diameter. We used to call it a 'wool-ball'. It had as much wool in it as 'pin-drop-silence' has pins.
Wool, my foot...any type of wool couldn't be got for love or money in and around Madras...it never sold...the climate was too hot. When I was an RS at AU, Waltair, a chap arrived who called himself Pool Officer. And he said he was from Madison, Wisconsin, rhyming the two words nasally. And he was living in the hostel and always wore the same shirt and pant. We wondered how, and he said he wears a Woolen Pant and Terylene Shirt combo that needed no washing or ironing.
We were all flummoxed and the next evening I went to Maitrani Brothers slyly and asked the counter chap if he had a woolen pant my size and he said, yes, he could get it sized in a day. The next day he gave me my one and only woolen pant for half my scholarship money. It was honey-colored with a crease as sharp as a knife and I loved it. I asked him if he had any terylene shirt within my budget. And he said, yes, he had a serylene shirt (no spelling mistake there) that covered my situation. I asked him if it was wash and wear and he said "yes, sort of"...it turned out to be "wash and tear"...it got a lot of holes in it of different sizes in a random array but I did wear it alright because it was so ventilating.
Coming to the woolen pant, I could only wear it once...it was so warm. I kept it for cool weather which never arrived till I went to KGP which does have winter, sort of. But when I wore it to the BCRoy Hall Mess, I turned out to be a messy eater and chunks of Aaloordum fell on its thigh and there was no way I could remove the mustard oil blotches from it...aaloo part was easy.
My CHE friend NCN said he learned all about surface active reagents and stuff in his class room and he knew that the mustard oil map can be removed by petrol-wash...he explained that there is a 'technique' to it. Don't go pouring petrol over the stained blotch...that would only make the smudge larger. One has to pour petrol 'around' the blotch and watch the petrol shrink the oil spot smaller and smaller and smaller till it becomes a 'point-mound' when you just peel it off with your fingers and wash your hands. After a while the petrol evaporates leaving no vestige of the oil or petrol. It all sounded fantastic science to me and I wondered at the profound wisdom of these Chemical Engineers.
So, both of us went to Harry's Petrol Pump carrying an ounce glass NCN picked up from his lab and pocketed. The bouncer there bounced us saying they sell petrol in gallons and not ounces...SCRAM!
And then NCN assured me he knew where he could lay his hands on an ounce of petrol...just leave it to him. And in the night he arrived carrying his petrol and went to work on my woolen pant's thigh diligently. After the elaborate process of petrol-stain-shrinkage-removal was gone through and the fat cluster was picked off triumphantly, we waited for the petrol to evaporate...it did, in seconds...but left a larger smudge of shiny oil. And he then caught his head in his hands and said:
"Oh, shit! I forgot that the petrol I stole from Takhlate's scooter had 2T oil mixed with it!"
So the pant went as usual to Chinta, the bearer boy, by and by, and he went high on it for a whole week.
Talking of toddy and its country cousins, I recall the visit of a Telugu couple to our Faculty Hostel at KGP. They were going to Cal to stay with her brother and watch the famed Calcutta Durga Puja, and on their way they broke their journey at KGP for a couple of days to see IIT, equally famed. And they were my guests because they were friends of my friends at Walatir. Using my influence I got a 'suite' booked for them.
That evening the gent borrowed my age-old push-bike and coolly disappeared and his wife was all agony and distress. After a couple of hours he cycled back wobbly and joined us for dinner and ate a silent hearty meal. And we retired to their suite. The wife called me aside and told me secretly not to believe a syllable of what her hubby was going to say. Well, he did say many many intimate things till day-break.
And in between I could smell ethanol in his breath and asked him where he vanished in the evening. He replied that he went in search of country liquor to which he was addicted. I asked him how and where he got it since he knew neither Hindi nor Bengali nor much of English...he was a minor Telugu poet. And he replied:
"Simple...keep going going going till you find a tall tree hidden by a culvert with a dozen or so farmers or cowherds sitting in a circle and laughing their heads off...and waggle a Ten Rupee Note and you will be welcomed like a long-lost cousin"
I guess the Badminton Wrecking Crew has to wait for tomorrow...
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The one thing my Father taught me in school (other than English) was Badminton. I became not only the school champion but also represented our school as the 'Center' in the Griggs Memorial Tournament at the RSR High School in Nellore where we were beaten but not bruised.
Reading 'Badminton' you may think it is the "Shuttle Badminton" played by the ruling Bollywood Star (the dot-product of the Champion) who I watched on screen playing the thing while dancing like a duck in flames...repulsive to the core...I mean you either dance or play games...you can't do both...not done.
The Badminton we had at school was called "Ball Badminton" because it was played with a ball and not the feathers of a duck-chick plucked from its left wing only as Wiki tells me...why left wing, it doesn't say.
The ball we played with was about half the size of a tennis ball in diameter. We used to call it a 'wool-ball'. It had as much wool in it as 'pin-drop-silence' has pins.
Wool, my foot...any type of wool couldn't be got for love or money in and around Madras...it never sold...the climate was too hot. When I was an RS at AU, Waltair, a chap arrived who called himself Pool Officer. And he said he was from Madison, Wisconsin, rhyming the two words nasally. And he was living in the hostel and always wore the same shirt and pant. We wondered how, and he said he wears a Woolen Pant and Terylene Shirt combo that needed no washing or ironing.
We were all flummoxed and the next evening I went to Maitrani Brothers slyly and asked the counter chap if he had a woolen pant my size and he said, yes, he could get it sized in a day. The next day he gave me my one and only woolen pant for half my scholarship money. It was honey-colored with a crease as sharp as a knife and I loved it. I asked him if he had any terylene shirt within my budget. And he said, yes, he had a serylene shirt (no spelling mistake there) that covered my situation. I asked him if it was wash and wear and he said "yes, sort of"...it turned out to be "wash and tear"...it got a lot of holes in it of different sizes in a random array but I did wear it alright because it was so ventilating.
Coming to the woolen pant, I could only wear it once...it was so warm. I kept it for cool weather which never arrived till I went to KGP which does have winter, sort of. But when I wore it to the BCRoy Hall Mess, I turned out to be a messy eater and chunks of Aaloordum fell on its thigh and there was no way I could remove the mustard oil blotches from it...aaloo part was easy.
My CHE friend NCN said he learned all about surface active reagents and stuff in his class room and he knew that the mustard oil map can be removed by petrol-wash...he explained that there is a 'technique' to it. Don't go pouring petrol over the stained blotch...that would only make the smudge larger. One has to pour petrol 'around' the blotch and watch the petrol shrink the oil spot smaller and smaller and smaller till it becomes a 'point-mound' when you just peel it off with your fingers and wash your hands. After a while the petrol evaporates leaving no vestige of the oil or petrol. It all sounded fantastic science to me and I wondered at the profound wisdom of these Chemical Engineers.
So, both of us went to Harry's Petrol Pump carrying an ounce glass NCN picked up from his lab and pocketed. The bouncer there bounced us saying they sell petrol in gallons and not ounces...SCRAM!
And then NCN assured me he knew where he could lay his hands on an ounce of petrol...just leave it to him. And in the night he arrived carrying his petrol and went to work on my woolen pant's thigh diligently. After the elaborate process of petrol-stain-shrinkage-removal was gone through and the fat cluster was picked off triumphantly, we waited for the petrol to evaporate...it did, in seconds...but left a larger smudge of shiny oil. And he then caught his head in his hands and said:
"Oh, shit! I forgot that the petrol I stole from Takhlate's scooter had 2T oil mixed with it!"
So the pant went as usual to Chinta, the bearer boy, by and by, and he went high on it for a whole week.
Talking of toddy and its country cousins, I recall the visit of a Telugu couple to our Faculty Hostel at KGP. They were going to Cal to stay with her brother and watch the famed Calcutta Durga Puja, and on their way they broke their journey at KGP for a couple of days to see IIT, equally famed. And they were my guests because they were friends of my friends at Walatir. Using my influence I got a 'suite' booked for them.
That evening the gent borrowed my age-old push-bike and coolly disappeared and his wife was all agony and distress. After a couple of hours he cycled back wobbly and joined us for dinner and ate a silent hearty meal. And we retired to their suite. The wife called me aside and told me secretly not to believe a syllable of what her hubby was going to say. Well, he did say many many intimate things till day-break.
And in between I could smell ethanol in his breath and asked him where he vanished in the evening. He replied that he went in search of country liquor to which he was addicted. I asked him how and where he got it since he knew neither Hindi nor Bengali nor much of English...he was a minor Telugu poet. And he replied:
"Simple...keep going going going till you find a tall tree hidden by a culvert with a dozen or so farmers or cowherds sitting in a circle and laughing their heads off...and waggle a Ten Rupee Note and you will be welcomed like a long-lost cousin"
I guess the Badminton Wrecking Crew has to wait for tomorrow...
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