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In the 1950s our village Muthukur was full of caterpillars...most of them black, ugly and vile.
We were fond of drumsticks and most everyone in the village had a tree or two of drumsticks in their backyards...they require no care...just plant a sapling and water it for a few days, and within a couple of years the tree grows 20 feet high and yields its bounty.
But there is a catch.
This particular tree somehow invites hordes of caterpillars of the black and ugly sort once every five or six years. One fine morning you find that the entire tree, the trunk, the branches, and the leaves becomes a black crawling carpet. There were no pesticides then and the only thing to do was to burn the whole damn tree pouring costly kerosene on its trunk and lighting it up.
For kids it was debatable whether this ritual was more sought after than the delicious drumsticks in sambar that we fought about.
We kids had our shirts on in the sultry climate only when we went to school. As soon as we got back, we stripped ourselves to our khakhi knickers and ran out to play.
And once in while, we found that a caterpillar or two dropped on our backs and started making its presence keenly felt. And we reflexively slapped our backs not knowing what they were hosting...and what a mess!!!
There was no Avil then and that meant itchy red spots all over our backs and at times thorny implants. But it didn't seem to matter...play was all-consuming.
Most of the trees in our backyards were hosting ugly cocoons later...thick, fibrous, and black...and these gave rise to back-winged butterflies in a couple of weeks.
But once in a while I used to watch with awe a cocoon (chrysalis) hanging down the lovely green leaf of a kasturi (rakta karobi...red oleander) tree. It used to shine in all the colors of the rainbow in the sun light depending on which side I viewed it from. It was an awesome sight that thrilled me. I didn't then know about thin film interference colors. And one fine morning it is no longer intact...it split up and hung loose...we had enough of biology then and I knew that an iridescent butterfly had escaped its trap.
It was only after I read Sommerfeld's Optics at IIT KGP that I knew that some butterflies have their wings coated thin enough to display all the glorious interference colors...like the soap bubbles we blew and played with.
And it was at KGP that I heard about Caterpillar Trucks, Tractors and Bulldozers.
I once assisted in drafting the Convocation Speech of our Director at IIT KGP. And I thought, after all the rigmarole of the achievements of IIT KGP during the past year, there should a para a little different.
And so I evoked the metaphor of a chrysalis for IIT KGP...students crawl into its portals raw and uncouth, and reside in their KGP Cocoon for 4 or 5 years, and fly away like colorful butterflies into more lucrative pastures.
Apparently it didn't go well...students refused to identify themselves with caterpillars crawling out of their glorious Calcutta Boys School ;)
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In the 1950s our village Muthukur was full of caterpillars...most of them black, ugly and vile.
We were fond of drumsticks and most everyone in the village had a tree or two of drumsticks in their backyards...they require no care...just plant a sapling and water it for a few days, and within a couple of years the tree grows 20 feet high and yields its bounty.
But there is a catch.
This particular tree somehow invites hordes of caterpillars of the black and ugly sort once every five or six years. One fine morning you find that the entire tree, the trunk, the branches, and the leaves becomes a black crawling carpet. There were no pesticides then and the only thing to do was to burn the whole damn tree pouring costly kerosene on its trunk and lighting it up.
For kids it was debatable whether this ritual was more sought after than the delicious drumsticks in sambar that we fought about.
We kids had our shirts on in the sultry climate only when we went to school. As soon as we got back, we stripped ourselves to our khakhi knickers and ran out to play.
And once in while, we found that a caterpillar or two dropped on our backs and started making its presence keenly felt. And we reflexively slapped our backs not knowing what they were hosting...and what a mess!!!
There was no Avil then and that meant itchy red spots all over our backs and at times thorny implants. But it didn't seem to matter...play was all-consuming.
Most of the trees in our backyards were hosting ugly cocoons later...thick, fibrous, and black...and these gave rise to back-winged butterflies in a couple of weeks.
But once in a while I used to watch with awe a cocoon (chrysalis) hanging down the lovely green leaf of a kasturi (rakta karobi...red oleander) tree. It used to shine in all the colors of the rainbow in the sun light depending on which side I viewed it from. It was an awesome sight that thrilled me. I didn't then know about thin film interference colors. And one fine morning it is no longer intact...it split up and hung loose...we had enough of biology then and I knew that an iridescent butterfly had escaped its trap.
It was only after I read Sommerfeld's Optics at IIT KGP that I knew that some butterflies have their wings coated thin enough to display all the glorious interference colors...like the soap bubbles we blew and played with.
And it was at KGP that I heard about Caterpillar Trucks, Tractors and Bulldozers.
I once assisted in drafting the Convocation Speech of our Director at IIT KGP. And I thought, after all the rigmarole of the achievements of IIT KGP during the past year, there should a para a little different.
And so I evoked the metaphor of a chrysalis for IIT KGP...students crawl into its portals raw and uncouth, and reside in their KGP Cocoon for 4 or 5 years, and fly away like colorful butterflies into more lucrative pastures.
Apparently it didn't go well...students refused to identify themselves with caterpillars crawling out of their glorious Calcutta Boys School ;)
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What coincidence ! I ghost wrote a quite similar speech (raw material uncouth caterpillars turning out as colourful butterflies in four years)for our Vice-chancellor, BHU in 2001. Not only the VC but all the students of IY BHU liked it, the way the clapping went on. May be, boys (& girls) at BHU are more exposed to poetic expressions.
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