======================================================================
......William Shakespeare
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/all-the-world-s-a-stage/
*******************************************************************************************************
They say there is a Shakespeare line for every occasion, every mood and every wisecrack.
The above poem (Seven Ages of Man) is from 'As You Like It'. We had both the story and the poem in our Class XI and my good Father taught us well in our English Class...so it stuck.
Now that I have entered my seventies, I am squarely in the last Age:
"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything".
And it is exhilarating to explore it as keenly as I did my earlier six Ages.
The other day Vinit called from Indore and we had a long chat. It is twenty years since we met but it feels like only yesterday. Like many of my ex-students at IIT KGP who got back in touch with me, here is the typical way the rediscovery happened:
*******************************************************************************************************
Dear Prof. Sastry,
*********************************************************************************
Vinit takes revenge on me by giving me homework occasionally. We have in common this feature that both of us did our Ph Ds on EM Radiation...a quarter century apart. Although he is not strictly into academics, he has a keen eye for the basics of physics and exults in understanding complex systems by seeking and catching their guts and reducing their essentials to the principles of simple physical systems. He ought to have been teaching at IIT KGP...only trouble is that he is far too serious about physics...a contra-indication for a fulfilling teaching career.
And like a good teacher, I try and throw the ball back in his court whenever he gives me homework.
Recently I had invited all the regular readers of this blog, whose e-mail ids I have, to kindly contribute a Guest Column by way of a short 'reminiscence piece' of theirs. As you can see, the result is mostly eloquent silence. Aniket sent his fabulous post after some arm-twisting. And Saswat, who promised me a post and then fell silent, had long ago sent a story which I found very interesting and wonderfully written and I 'scooped' it. I am eagerly awaiting guest columns from the others teasing myself like in the game:
"He loves me, he loves me not; she loves me, she loves me not"
http://2ols.com/item_9287_462709932-He-Loves-Me-He-Loves-Me-Not-Ten-Piece-Flower-Petal-Nail-Files-Set-of-12.htm
During our talk Vinit expressed curiosity about my day's routine...how I spend my 24 hours, whether I go for long walks, take my bitter pills, and such other details. It was very kind of him. So, here is a short summing up:
"I lie down on my cot for 20 hours, turning this way and that like a roti on the hot-pan; sit up (to eat and blog) for 3 hours, dress up and go out for the remaining 1 hour"
First the cots...
33 years ago, when I was about to get married blissfully, my good friends Prof & Dr Mrs Rao gifted us a fabulous pair of identical Jaswant Singh seasoned teak-wood cots measuring about 6.5 ft x 3 ft each. The logic was that, when joined, they are a foot wider than the standard double cot. So, they can hold the upcoming baby easily between the couple till he is into Class V. And whenever the couple have a tiff, the two cots can be separated and the baby thrown this way and that...generally my wife won and I had to hold the baby. The two cots stayed with us ever since and are as good as new. Nowadays, I lie down and go to sleep in the 'broadside-on' position at one end of the joined cots (I am only 5.6 ft). The rest of the 'double cot' is reserved for Ishani's property...like her pen-set, crayon box, and knickknacks with which she plays and keeps strict tabs on.
Most of my things like my book-rack and wardrobe are in my bedroom with an attached bath, so I don't have to go out unless I want to have an excursion.
The day begins at about 7.30 AM when I brush my teeth (the few that remain and give endless trouble) and wait for welcome sounds from the kitchen. My D-i-L, Sailaja, is a hard-pressed lady...she has to mind her baby daughter, big baby husband and biggest baby F-i-L, in addition to her enormous house-keeping. And after a few minutes, the sweet tweets of Ishani are heard heralding a new day. Often she comes into my bedroom (door always open) with a "Good Morning" greeting, gets up on the bed and shakes off her sleepy eyes. And then the call comes from her mom and she goes out for preps for her school (starting at 9). And Sailaja brings me my cup of welcome Tea and drives her daughter to school...she is an expert driver of our Maruti 800.
After Tea, I finish my ablutions and lie down on the cot till my son wakes up and fetches me another cup of Tea at 10.30. I am being pampered too much and I let it stay like that...nothing could be better. Apparently my wife, before embarking on her last trip to the Cancer Center in the Ambulance, called my son and Sailaja aside and instructed them to take good care of me...and they are doing it religiously.
And I take the Tea in bed. My son and D-i-l get ready to fetch Ishani back from school, this time in my son's Tata Indigo, at noon. That's when I too get dressed up to join the Welcome Home Party to Ishani. The ride is 5 long minutes. And after coming out of her uniform, Ishani makes another trip to my room till her mom calls her for her lunch.
I am back in bed waiting for the huge cup of Green Tea my son brings me and I enjoy it in my bed. At around 2 PM, my son gets ready for his Office and calls me to join him for lunch and serves and feeds me like Lord Emsworth does his Empress of Blandings. And he drives away to his Office (he works from 3 PM till midnight).
I am back to bed and a snooze. Sailaja brings me Tea again at 5.30 PM and takes Ishani out to her Playground.
And I get up at 6.30 PM and sit up in front of my laptop which is never on my lap but lofted on to my bed and placed on a mini-charpai gifted by my friend NP long long ago. And blog away the day's piece till 8.30 PM and then go out for a walk. And return and back to the laptop, checking mails (non-existing) and fiddling with Google. Ishani goes to bed around 10 PM and I wait for my son to arrive around midnight. After he returns, he gets busy with his laptop winding up his day's work.
And he calls me for Dinner at 2 AM and that is the time we ask each other: "How was your day?"
And I take my 10 pills and try and go to sleep on the bed where I worked throughout the day.
You may laugh at the word 'work' but indeed it is WORK. The whole day and most of the night, there is an incessant chatter that goes on in my brain (such as it is), and the work part lies in picking up some 'signal' from the noise and amplifying it into a readable blog by the end of the day...indeed I never worked so hard in my life.
In between, I browse the dubious Stats of my Blogger to see which country has my 'audience' at any point of time and how my various posts are faring.
It is like the time I used to play in my childhood in the rainy season in our Village. The open drain in front of our house got flooded after a downpour to become a torrential stream and that is the time for launching paper-boats and watching and betting which one goes farthest before it turns belly up.
And it turns out the first prize goes jointly to these two posts (about 500 views each):
Both are part of the Reco-Mela Series, predictably.
The average daily viewership is a mere 100 nowadays.
You may ask why I score so low compared to, say, King Khan's tweets with his 2 million followers.
The answer is best given by quoting (once again) Ram Manohar Lohia who used to insist on contesting against Nehru in his Phulpur Constituency and scoring consistently 5% of the votes polled and losing deposit ignominiously.
Reporter: Lohiajee, why did you score only 5% of the votes polled?
Lohia: That happens to be precisely the percentage of literacy in Phulpur.
=======================================================================
All the World's a Stage
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
......William Shakespeare
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/all-the-world-s-a-stage/
*******************************************************************************************************
They say there is a Shakespeare line for every occasion, every mood and every wisecrack.
The above poem (Seven Ages of Man) is from 'As You Like It'. We had both the story and the poem in our Class XI and my good Father taught us well in our English Class...so it stuck.
Now that I have entered my seventies, I am squarely in the last Age:
"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything".
And it is exhilarating to explore it as keenly as I did my earlier six Ages.
The other day Vinit called from Indore and we had a long chat. It is twenty years since we met but it feels like only yesterday. Like many of my ex-students at IIT KGP who got back in touch with me, here is the typical way the rediscovery happened:
*******************************************************************************************************
Sunday, February 14, 2010 9.48 AM
Dear Prof. Sastry,
During some random search on
web, I came across your blog and have thoroughly enjoyed reading all
very interesting stories. I am one of your old students. My name is
Vinit Kumar and I joined Physics Department in 1987 and graduated in 1992
(the same batch in which Kapeeleshwar Krishana and Goutam Tripathi were
there, Dipak Munshi did his final year project with you - just trying to
tell you names whom you may remember). I had exchanged couple of
e-mails and one letter with you earlier if you recall. I have been
working at Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore,
since 1993 and was in Argonne National Laboratory on post-doc during
2003-05.
I am very excited to have discovered you once again
and would like to keep in touch, because more I am growing with age, I
feel that I need guidance about life and physics from a person like
you.
I will wait for your response before I write long
mails to you! Hope you are in good health and having good
post-retirement life. Please let me know how you spend your time these
days.
Best regards,
Vinit Kumar.
Vinit takes revenge on me by giving me homework occasionally. We have in common this feature that both of us did our Ph Ds on EM Radiation...a quarter century apart. Although he is not strictly into academics, he has a keen eye for the basics of physics and exults in understanding complex systems by seeking and catching their guts and reducing their essentials to the principles of simple physical systems. He ought to have been teaching at IIT KGP...only trouble is that he is far too serious about physics...a contra-indication for a fulfilling teaching career.
And like a good teacher, I try and throw the ball back in his court whenever he gives me homework.
Recently I had invited all the regular readers of this blog, whose e-mail ids I have, to kindly contribute a Guest Column by way of a short 'reminiscence piece' of theirs. As you can see, the result is mostly eloquent silence. Aniket sent his fabulous post after some arm-twisting. And Saswat, who promised me a post and then fell silent, had long ago sent a story which I found very interesting and wonderfully written and I 'scooped' it. I am eagerly awaiting guest columns from the others teasing myself like in the game:
"He loves me, he loves me not; she loves me, she loves me not"
http://2ols.com/item_9287_462709932-He-Loves-Me-He-Loves-Me-Not-Ten-Piece-Flower-Petal-Nail-Files-Set-of-12.htm
During our talk Vinit expressed curiosity about my day's routine...how I spend my 24 hours, whether I go for long walks, take my bitter pills, and such other details. It was very kind of him. So, here is a short summing up:
"I lie down on my cot for 20 hours, turning this way and that like a roti on the hot-pan; sit up (to eat and blog) for 3 hours, dress up and go out for the remaining 1 hour"
First the cots...
33 years ago, when I was about to get married blissfully, my good friends Prof & Dr Mrs Rao gifted us a fabulous pair of identical Jaswant Singh seasoned teak-wood cots measuring about 6.5 ft x 3 ft each. The logic was that, when joined, they are a foot wider than the standard double cot. So, they can hold the upcoming baby easily between the couple till he is into Class V. And whenever the couple have a tiff, the two cots can be separated and the baby thrown this way and that...generally my wife won and I had to hold the baby. The two cots stayed with us ever since and are as good as new. Nowadays, I lie down and go to sleep in the 'broadside-on' position at one end of the joined cots (I am only 5.6 ft). The rest of the 'double cot' is reserved for Ishani's property...like her pen-set, crayon box, and knickknacks with which she plays and keeps strict tabs on.
Most of my things like my book-rack and wardrobe are in my bedroom with an attached bath, so I don't have to go out unless I want to have an excursion.
The day begins at about 7.30 AM when I brush my teeth (the few that remain and give endless trouble) and wait for welcome sounds from the kitchen. My D-i-L, Sailaja, is a hard-pressed lady...she has to mind her baby daughter, big baby husband and biggest baby F-i-L, in addition to her enormous house-keeping. And after a few minutes, the sweet tweets of Ishani are heard heralding a new day. Often she comes into my bedroom (door always open) with a "Good Morning" greeting, gets up on the bed and shakes off her sleepy eyes. And then the call comes from her mom and she goes out for preps for her school (starting at 9). And Sailaja brings me my cup of welcome Tea and drives her daughter to school...she is an expert driver of our Maruti 800.
After Tea, I finish my ablutions and lie down on the cot till my son wakes up and fetches me another cup of Tea at 10.30. I am being pampered too much and I let it stay like that...nothing could be better. Apparently my wife, before embarking on her last trip to the Cancer Center in the Ambulance, called my son and Sailaja aside and instructed them to take good care of me...and they are doing it religiously.
And I take the Tea in bed. My son and D-i-l get ready to fetch Ishani back from school, this time in my son's Tata Indigo, at noon. That's when I too get dressed up to join the Welcome Home Party to Ishani. The ride is 5 long minutes. And after coming out of her uniform, Ishani makes another trip to my room till her mom calls her for her lunch.
I am back in bed waiting for the huge cup of Green Tea my son brings me and I enjoy it in my bed. At around 2 PM, my son gets ready for his Office and calls me to join him for lunch and serves and feeds me like Lord Emsworth does his Empress of Blandings. And he drives away to his Office (he works from 3 PM till midnight).
I am back to bed and a snooze. Sailaja brings me Tea again at 5.30 PM and takes Ishani out to her Playground.
And I get up at 6.30 PM and sit up in front of my laptop which is never on my lap but lofted on to my bed and placed on a mini-charpai gifted by my friend NP long long ago. And blog away the day's piece till 8.30 PM and then go out for a walk. And return and back to the laptop, checking mails (non-existing) and fiddling with Google. Ishani goes to bed around 10 PM and I wait for my son to arrive around midnight. After he returns, he gets busy with his laptop winding up his day's work.
And he calls me for Dinner at 2 AM and that is the time we ask each other: "How was your day?"
And I take my 10 pills and try and go to sleep on the bed where I worked throughout the day.
You may laugh at the word 'work' but indeed it is WORK. The whole day and most of the night, there is an incessant chatter that goes on in my brain (such as it is), and the work part lies in picking up some 'signal' from the noise and amplifying it into a readable blog by the end of the day...indeed I never worked so hard in my life.
In between, I browse the dubious Stats of my Blogger to see which country has my 'audience' at any point of time and how my various posts are faring.
It is like the time I used to play in my childhood in the rainy season in our Village. The open drain in front of our house got flooded after a downpour to become a torrential stream and that is the time for launching paper-boats and watching and betting which one goes farthest before it turns belly up.
And it turns out the first prize goes jointly to these two posts (about 500 views each):
Both are part of the Reco-Mela Series, predictably.
The average daily viewership is a mere 100 nowadays.
You may ask why I score so low compared to, say, King Khan's tweets with his 2 million followers.
The answer is best given by quoting (once again) Ram Manohar Lohia who used to insist on contesting against Nehru in his Phulpur Constituency and scoring consistently 5% of the votes polled and losing deposit ignominiously.
Reporter: Lohiajee, why did you score only 5% of the votes polled?
Lohia: That happens to be precisely the percentage of literacy in Phulpur.
=======================================================================
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