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But that shlok never made a great impression earlier...the mango tree, MSS sitting under it musing, and speaking it out in layman's terms was terrific.
"...Black streams of people flowed eastward down all the streets leading in that direction; these streams, whose headwaters were in the drygoods stores, office buildings, harness shops, movie theaters, were fed by trickles of housewives, children, cripples, servants, dogs, and cats, slipping out of the houses past which the main streams flowed, shouting and screaming...Nobody has ever been able to compute with any exactness how many people took part in the great rout of 1913, for the panic, which extended from the Winslow Bottling Works in the south end to Clintonville, six miles north, ended as abruptly as it began and the bobtail and ragtag and velvet-gowned groups of refugees melted away and slunk home, leaving the streets peaceful and deserted. The shouting, weeping, tangled evacuation of the city lasted not more than two hours in all...All the time the sun shone quietly and there was no sign of any water...Later, when the panic had died down and people had gone back to their homes and their offices, minimizing the distances they had run and offering various reasons for running, city engineers pointed out that even if the dam had broken, the water level would not have risen more than two additional inches...The next day, the city went about its business as if nothing had happened, but there was no joking. It was two years or more before you dared treat the breaking of the dam lightly. And even now, twenty years after, there are a few persons, like Dr. Mallory, who will shut up like a clam if you mention the Afternoon of the Great Run."
MSS once told me of the evening when he watched and helped chase a smallish water snake from the Faculty Club across the road into the fence bordering the I. G. Hall. Apparently by next noon, the snake turned into a venomous 6' cobra in the Dining Hall of the Girl's Hostel!
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............Holy Bible, John 1
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So, that is the greatness of the Word (not the Microsoft thing, although that too is great in its own way but for its unreliable spell-check).
By 'Word' I guess the Bible means the spoken word. A similar concept is there in the Hindu scriptures too. The primordial Word is known as "Om!". Every holy mantra of the Vedas starts (and ends) with the mystical "Om!" The thin Mandukyopanishad is entirely devoted to the meaning of Om (a-u-m).
The Vedas are called Shrutis (revelations) and the tradition is completely oral, passed on from generation to generation. The chants are truly enchanting. Pratik-sir tells me that in his boyhood at Benares their neighbors were Veda Pundits who used to chant assorted Vedic hymns every night. And he was so taken in that he listens to CDs of them nowadays.
A young Swamijee used to often visit our home in my boyhood and my mom was very pleased whenever he agreed to partake our simple meals. And he had a rule...he never spoke while eating...focused upload.
I used to taunt my mom that the reason why he never spoke while eating is profound: God gave us two ears for hearing, two eyes for seeing, two nostrils for blowing, two legs for walking, two hands for grabbing etc....but only one mouth for both eating and speaking...our mouth is a 2-in-1 device and so we ought to be careful not to talk while eating and vice versa.
There was a young professor in our Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP who used to flout this sacred rule. He was so talkative that he would continue speaking even when his mouth was full of fish cutlet. It was a sight to watch but scary though...the epiglottis which is the valve that saves us from swallowing the wrong way often goes dysfunctional, with untidy results on the dining table...
Spoken word has no parallel in instruction. Most of us average folks need a teacher, except perhaps great souls like Newton and Einstein. DB's God, the great Russian Mathematician I. M. Gel'fand, whose "Gel'and Patterns" SDM said contain "worlds within worlds", apparently said that his math "comes from above". Ramanujan also said that his famous conjectures were revealed to him in his dreams by Goddess Namakkal.
But most of us need teachers who talk. Books can't give us insights though they may give us techniques. And the best instruction is "one-to-one". I recall many nice things that my Guru SDM used to say off-hand quite out of context...he was a great driveler.
About 3 years ago I posted a short blog called "Sikand's Precept":
More than 2 years later, Minu, Prof. Sikand's daughter, got to see it and was delighted. And posted the link on her Face Book Page. And it turned out to be a 'best-seller' of sorts.
That short blog was my tribute to Prof MSS. One morning after my Lecture Class, I went to Canteen and, with a cup of tea, joined MSS who was sitting and gathering wool under the mango tree alone. After a couple of minutes silence he said:
"Sastryjee, everyone from the sweeper to
the Director has some power in them. Recognize it, respect it and use
it for your benefit."
That brief sentence made such a great impact on me that I recall it often even now. The teaching it contains was nothing new. For, I had earlier read the Gita shlok:
Vidyaa vinaya sampanne brahmane gavi hastini
shuni chaiva swapakecha panditaa: sama darshana:
But that shlok never made a great impression earlier...the mango tree, MSS sitting under it musing, and speaking it out in layman's terms was terrific.
Of course words can be distorted during transmission like in the famous Chinese Whispers.
Thurber wrote a memoir titled: "The Day the Dam Broke" in his unique style mixing fact with hyperbole subtly. Apparently in his boyhood in Columbus, Ohio, in 1913, there was this sudden rumor on a placid afternoon that the dam broke. And that led to an inflating exodus of two thousand people in flight:
"...Black streams of people flowed eastward down all the streets leading in that direction; these streams, whose headwaters were in the drygoods stores, office buildings, harness shops, movie theaters, were fed by trickles of housewives, children, cripples, servants, dogs, and cats, slipping out of the houses past which the main streams flowed, shouting and screaming...Nobody has ever been able to compute with any exactness how many people took part in the great rout of 1913, for the panic, which extended from the Winslow Bottling Works in the south end to Clintonville, six miles north, ended as abruptly as it began and the bobtail and ragtag and velvet-gowned groups of refugees melted away and slunk home, leaving the streets peaceful and deserted. The shouting, weeping, tangled evacuation of the city lasted not more than two hours in all...All the time the sun shone quietly and there was no sign of any water...Later, when the panic had died down and people had gone back to their homes and their offices, minimizing the distances they had run and offering various reasons for running, city engineers pointed out that even if the dam had broken, the water level would not have risen more than two additional inches...The next day, the city went about its business as if nothing had happened, but there was no joking. It was two years or more before you dared treat the breaking of the dam lightly. And even now, twenty years after, there are a few persons, like Dr. Mallory, who will shut up like a clam if you mention the Afternoon of the Great Run."
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