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Every now and then we try to get nearer to the concept of perfection, try to feel closer with our worshiped principles. Perhaps, that is one of the motive forces of growth of the mind. When the human embodiments of those principles become tangible to the seeker, the seeker reaches a state of "fulfillment". That was my feeling when you rang me up. Many of my present practices as a teacher were picked up on seeing you, interacting with you and on getting valuable advices from you. I try to replay in my mind many of the words you told. In most cases, when I could recall your advices and followed them, I have got immense success and pleasure as a teacher. Your entire family is an example to us. We keep on discussing those moments so often. There is no need for me to impress you through admiration. Still, if I fail to admit to myself my gratitude to great souls, I shall be belittled in my own eyes. Hence those above sentences, which you may take as "thinking aloud".
Many congratulations to dear Sonu. Gratitude to Madam for her care. I have every conviction that you will have a loving, caring and sharing bigger family soon. My wife will ring you up soon.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
.............
1. A. B. Wood
2. E. G. Richardson
3. E. H. Barton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqfsocsnHMQ
And violin was our perennial household nuisance...many a marriageable girl in our families was tutored in this complicated musical instrument to show off her talent to unsuspecting customers.
But I never saw a piano except in later Telugu movies where the hero descends on the cockpit and moves his hands randomly on the keyboard. Well, that was ok...a big enough thing to hide his hands. But Haranath Sir wrote that it has struck strings...no strings were visible on the movie screen, and much less what struck them so haplessly loud.
After the class was over, I ran behind Sirjee and asked:
"Sir, please, sir, where can I find the textbooks?"
"Library"
So during the lunch break I went to the imposing library behind our JVD building and asked the Library Assistant, bowing several times like Alice to the Queen:
"Sir, please, sir, where can I find A. B. Wood, E. G. Richardson and E. H. Barton, sir?"
"Wait a minute...
...we have only one copy each of Richardson and Barton and they are issued to Dr. P B V Haranath. We have two copies of A B Wood but they are untraceable...you know the Library is in a mess since we are going to move to the new building near the Banyan Tree..."
That evening I walked to the two and only two bookshops in the town:
MSR Bros & Book Center
and found that none of these three books was available for love or money.
So there went any hope of my trying to understand the mysterious Sound.
Six months later a senior of mine took me under his wings, sort of,...the one that is now a retired IAS and a prolific RTI activist. His elder brother also did his B Sc (Hons) in physics in Vizagh four years back. And they managed to get hold of an old print of A B Wood. And were willing to lend it to me for a week but no longer than that.
And to my chagrin I discovered that the book had more than 200 pages.
I ran home with it and copied, in long hand, about 100 pages of Sound that I thought was important from the exam point of view...there being then no other point of view.
And to my chagrin, it had no Fourier Analysis of either:
1. Plucked Strings
or
2. Struck Strings
or
3. Bowed Strings.
So, all I had was the hurriedly copied down class notes of Haranath Sir.
The received wisdom was that Bowed Strings is likely to appear in our exam since Plucked Strings appeared last year and Struck Strings the year before...provided that the paper-setter was not a violent hater of the Brahmin Nobel Laureate, Sir C V Raman (who did a lot of work on violin strings bowed down by a horse-hair bow).
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At the tender age of 15, I was admitted to the Physics B. Sc. (Hons) of Andhra University at Vizagh, without my knowledge, consent, or liking. Things were like that those days in our families. All decisions ranging from studies to marriage were taken by our all-wise elders and thrust upon us kids.
So it was thus that I had to struggle with physics for the next 47 years till I retired and quit physics with a sigh of relief...like removing the tight boots after an hour-long NCC parade. It could have been worse...chemistry or math or biology or literature or even civil engineering.
We were a dozen exactly. We were told that there were only 12 seats for this prestigious course at our university. I understood why only 12 the very first day we were shepherded into our physics class room which was a cubicle in the first floor of the majestic Jeypore Vikram Deo (JVD) College building of sciences...that room had space for only 12 chairs.
I was not living in the campus hostels but in my uncle's place in the Official Colony of Maharanipet (still don't know who this Maharani is). So I had no interaction with the 10 other of my classmates...the 11th was a girl and so any interaction was unthinkable.
As soon as we assembled, a teacher walked into our classroom dressed in white pants and a white full shirt wearing black shoes. He wore no belt on his pants...the rings were showing...he had a small paunch and that held his pants up. He was profoundly bespectacled and was in his early thirties. He either looked down, or at the blackboard, or at the sea, and quite obviously was too shy of his students. He turned out to be the gentlest soul at our university... (Late) Prof P B V Haranath.
...That reminds me...a few years before my retirement from IIT KGP, a young couple had just then got their twin doctorates and were launching their teaching boats at a prestigious university at Cal. Although they were engineers they got very close to me and my wife, and became family friends. The gent is a rare idealist and a typical old-world bhadralok busy organizing SPIC MACAY concerts then. He asked me, after my wife gave them their farewell dinner, advice on how to teach. Advices are best not given, but if given, best forgotten by both the advisee and adviser. But I liked the youngster so much that I gave him this advice for what it was worth:
"Teach your students...not your blackboard"
Half a dozen years later I remembered him when my son's wedding was coming up and sent them a wedding card...by then both the gent and his lady were professors. And this is the charming reply I got in 2007...kind words are better than coronets...I never knew that people in the 21st century can write like this:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Most Respected Sir,
Every now and then we try to get nearer to the concept of perfection, try to feel closer with our worshiped principles. Perhaps, that is one of the motive forces of growth of the mind. When the human embodiments of those principles become tangible to the seeker, the seeker reaches a state of "fulfillment". That was my feeling when you rang me up. Many of my present practices as a teacher were picked up on seeing you, interacting with you and on getting valuable advices from you. I try to replay in my mind many of the words you told. In most cases, when I could recall your advices and followed them, I have got immense success and pleasure as a teacher. Your entire family is an example to us. We keep on discussing those moments so often. There is no need for me to impress you through admiration. Still, if I fail to admit to myself my gratitude to great souls, I shall be belittled in my own eyes. Hence those above sentences, which you may take as "thinking aloud".
Many congratulations to dear Sonu. Gratitude to Madam for her care. I have every conviction that you will have a loving, caring and sharing bigger family soon. My wife will ring you up soon.
With best regards and highest
reverences,
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Wow!
.............
Professor Haranath passed the attendance register to us and turned to the blackboard and wrote:
Sound
Textbooks:
1. A. B. Wood
2. E. G. Richardson
3. E. H. Barton
And continued writing on the blackboard:
Important topics
1. Plucked Strings (veena)
2. Struck Strings (piano)
3. Bowed Strings (violin)
And attacked the blackboard with Fourier Analysis of Plucked Strings...silently without any sound either from him or us...just the whining sound of chalk on corrugated board.
That was the beginning of my lifelong habit of woolgathering. I saw veena alright in the Telugu movie, Iddaru Mitrulu (Two Friends...identical twins)...
And violin was our perennial household nuisance...many a marriageable girl in our families was tutored in this complicated musical instrument to show off her talent to unsuspecting customers.
But I never saw a piano except in later Telugu movies where the hero descends on the cockpit and moves his hands randomly on the keyboard. Well, that was ok...a big enough thing to hide his hands. But Haranath Sir wrote that it has struck strings...no strings were visible on the movie screen, and much less what struck them so haplessly loud.
After the class was over, I ran behind Sirjee and asked:
"Sir, please, sir, where can I find the textbooks?"
"Library"
So during the lunch break I went to the imposing library behind our JVD building and asked the Library Assistant, bowing several times like Alice to the Queen:
"Sir, please, sir, where can I find A. B. Wood, E. G. Richardson and E. H. Barton, sir?"
"Wait a minute...
...we have only one copy each of Richardson and Barton and they are issued to Dr. P B V Haranath. We have two copies of A B Wood but they are untraceable...you know the Library is in a mess since we are going to move to the new building near the Banyan Tree..."
That evening I walked to the two and only two bookshops in the town:
MSR Bros & Book Center
and found that none of these three books was available for love or money.
So there went any hope of my trying to understand the mysterious Sound.
Six months later a senior of mine took me under his wings, sort of,...the one that is now a retired IAS and a prolific RTI activist. His elder brother also did his B Sc (Hons) in physics in Vizagh four years back. And they managed to get hold of an old print of A B Wood. And were willing to lend it to me for a week but no longer than that.
And to my chagrin I discovered that the book had more than 200 pages.
I ran home with it and copied, in long hand, about 100 pages of Sound that I thought was important from the exam point of view...there being then no other point of view.
And to my chagrin, it had no Fourier Analysis of either:
1. Plucked Strings
or
2. Struck Strings
or
3. Bowed Strings.
So, all I had was the hurriedly copied down class notes of Haranath Sir.
The received wisdom was that Bowed Strings is likely to appear in our exam since Plucked Strings appeared last year and Struck Strings the year before...provided that the paper-setter was not a violent hater of the Brahmin Nobel Laureate, Sir C V Raman (who did a lot of work on violin strings bowed down by a horse-hair bow).
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