Needles & Haystacks - Repeat Telecast

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Here are some canonical searches for needles in haystacks:


Imagine you went out of your forest bungalow promising your wife to get that trophy for her. And you duly find that not only the trophy vanished into thin air, but on your return, you find there is no response for your demand for a cup of chai. You then discover that your wife too vanished into thin air meantime. And you are stuck in the middle of nowhere in a dense jungle, without your cell phone or your two-wheeler. You then go round and round in increasing circles shouting for her since you have no clue which way to turn. And you cry and keep asking the beasts and birds and bees and flowers and trees till you hear a faint voice calling you. And find a mortally wounded bird who says your wife has been airlifted by a bearded chap. And before he could answer your query as to which way they went, he breathes his last. You then cry more, with the only consolation that she has not been waylaid by woman-eating lions and tigers and may still be alive. And roam around till you meet a monkey king who promises to help you if you shoot his elder brother...and then forgets his promise. And then the monsoon breaks and you are stuck in your cave and when rains cease at last you threaten the monkey king that either he keep his word or get shot plumb dead. And he says sorry and summons his troops and orders them to go forth. And you give your id card to the most trustworthy research scholar of the lot and ask him to go south since you guess Sri Lanka is full of bearded chaps (before they migrated to Punjab en masse). And wait and wait till he at last brings cheerful news. Ha!


A J Cronin was our hot favorite half a century ago. We read most of his novels. The one called 'Beyond This Place' is again about a search for a needle in a haystack. This kid graduates and is about to launch on a teaching career when his mom tells him her secret: his dad is not dead, but was convicted of murder long long ago. He then abandons his teaching career to look out for his long-last father. And at last finds the prison where he is lodged. But he is denied entry. So, he goes about contacting witnesses in the case (still alive) and after years of painstaking leg-work finds a store girl willing to help him reopen the case. And gets his father out on appeal. When he at last meets him, he finds his father a complete wreck but glad to restart his system with his son's help.

Gripping novel!



I had my own hunting for the proverbial needle which I narrated long ago in:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2010/10/of-money-men.html

Briefly it is like this:

In 1970, I owed Rs 200 (= $40) to Dr N. Gajender, our ex-colleague at KGP, who got lost in the wild west of the US. Lost contact with him for five years. The only clue was that he hailed from Nellore, our District HQs, and his dad was having a shop in Santhapet. But NG left Nellore for his higher studies a decade or more ago. And I was keen to repay my debt of gratitude to his father, whose name I didn't know. So, one morning I set out for Santhapet determined to locate NG's father. I inquired in shop after shop asking if they know a gentleman who was having a shop in that street and whose son left for IIT KGP and then to America. And was greeted with staunch denials as if I were either a cop or a nut . As they say, at last, one shop-owner asked me to go to Chinna Bazaar (Little Bazaar) where a shop-owner had shifted three or four years ago. Then in Chinna Bazzar, everyone denied knowledge till...at last...I was asked to try in Pedda Bazaar (Big Bazaar)...you get the idea, right? At the end of four hours of legwork, I landed up at the door of NG's father's new and posh home. NG sent them so much money from America that his father shut shop and sold it and retired (like gps).

He took the money alright...nice of him to release me from my debt.


And now here is a lovely mail I got this morning:

Dear gps,

"In search of GPS's thesis"

There is no copy of your thesis in our Physics Library. I located it on the third floor (British) of the main library. The room is like an attic and it is kept locked. I had to get permission from the technical section, where I was interviewed. When the chief was convinced that I was a faculty member, he sent one his persons with me with the keys. After climbing up when the room was opened I found stacks having some five-six thousand theses ( I should say scattered over the stacks!) without any order. There are catalogue numbers on the bound volumes but no record of cards or computer database and the person who came to assist me didn't have any clue. He left me saying:

"khunje dekhun jadi peye jan, aage to sabai thesis library te jama kartona."

I tried looking for 530... to 539...with `SAS' on the spine.

After spending some thirty or forty minutes I located your thesis but unfortunately they told me it can't be issued...Thesis is a very precious item, that is why it is kept under lock and key! They have made sure that if anyone is interested in an old thesis he (she) won't be able to locate it! When I asked them about getting some of the pages photo-copied, they told me that I had to get permission of the librarian (who sits in the annexe building some half a kilometer away)...moreover there was no photo-copy machine nearby in that building. I browsed it for sometime and placed it back on the stack.

(I was stunned by those two photographs of cross -sections of Cerenkov cones, especially the one in which particle was moving in a direction perpendicular to the Optic axis and where the ellipse is visible.)

I would love to read your `work of love' one day.

Your thesis number is `609' which cannot be inverted!

With regards,

P*****


...Posted by Ishani

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Car Puja - Repeat Telecast

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When we shifted a month back from what was practically a marketplace to this sprawling township where the Main Gate is a kilometer's walk in rain and sun, I asked my son to buy a car for his unearthly commute (2 PM to 11 PM) leaving our 11-year old Maruti to myself and my D-i-L.

He was demurring but my wife insisted that he buy a sedan with AC unlike my matchbox Maruti.

That settled it and the rest was Party Time.

Innumerable visits to various websites, phone calls to friends and foes, budget constraints and stuff.

After debating on Hundai Verna, Toyota Innova, Honda City and such Shakespearean stuff as dreams are made on, they decided that Tata Indigo CSL or whatever is the best buy.

Hail Manmohanjee and his Open Economy (open to saints and sinners alike) and a 9% Growth Rate, one phone call to the vendor's showroom brought the salesman, banker, dealer and everyone together in cahoots and they were begging my son to visit them earliest.

My son, D-i-L, and li'l Ishani had only to visit them once to choose the color (Royal Burgundy, unlike Henry Ford's proverbial "any color as long as it's black"); and a check for Rs 20K as imprest money brought the vehicle from Pune; and the SBI salesman was there with his Loan Approval,.

So, yester-evening we all visited (in my matchbox Maruti) the Tata Motors Showroom to take 'delivery' of the beauty child.

Everything was shipshape but the ladies insisted that a coconut should be broken to ward off the Evil Eye.

No problem: in Hyderabad, a coconut comes with the car as a free gift, along with a box of chocolates for Ishani.

One boy brought the coconut, another camphor, a third the blue ribbon, yet another the yellow Temporary Registration Sticker Blank, and my son was made to break the coconut in front of the new car to her delight...yes there was another boy with a digital camera to take group photos of all of us standing in front of the car, with My Fair Lady as the star attraction Prime Mover.

After a round of applause, I told my son to propitiate all those waiting boys with Rs 50 each, and they were all as pleased as Punch, and bid us a fond farewell.

I asked the Mechanic how much gas he put in the fuel tank and he said: "Enough to reach the nearest gas station" which, as expected, flourished the Banner: "No Stock".

Fortunately the next nearest did have some gas and all of them sat in the AC sedan and drove away while I blindly tailed them in my matchbox in the dark night safe enough to our new sweet home.

And then the ladies insisted that the first thing to do this morning is to drive the new car to the nearest temple and get the Car Puja done. I didn't know that it is a specialized temple service, like tonsure.

When the car returned home, I saw its Royal Burgundy Bonnet defaced with marks of swastik and rangoli in red kumkum and yellow haldi, and garlanded like an agitating Opposition politician with a string of lemons, chillis and perhaps onions.

My son and myself then drove to the Begumpet Branch of SBI in hot sun and unruly traffic to get the Loan Papers done up and signed.

And we found a No Parking sign in front of the said Bank which was nestling in the midst of a heavily guarded traffic junction.

We could either flout the sign and park in front of the bank or park it a mile away in a gully and walk back.

I asked my son to take the chance. And we walked in to the Loan Section.

Midway, there was this shout repeated aloud: "Whose is the new Tata Indigo? Whose is the new Tata Indigo?? "

My son ran out leaving his wallet on the table, which I collected and followed.

There was this Traffic Cop with his Challan Book and ball pen.

He asked my son his name (son's) , fair enough;...then he asked him his (my son's) father's name.

I recalled Ibsen's quote: "The sins of the father are visited on the son".

And he wrote: Rs 200 which I gladly paid up as Parking Fees.

And then the cop asked for the Number of the Car.

And my son told him that it has yet to get a number (48 hours time lapse allowed).

This rather baffled the beefy cop, since he could neither leave that space blank getting a rebuke from his boss nor deface the page and return the Rs 200.

As the cop was biting his nails, I suggested why not he write down the chassis number.

The chap was as pleased as a packet of Charminar Cigarettes and let us off.

On our way home, I told my son that the Car Puja is now officially complete:

“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”...Jesus

...Posted by Ishani


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Pani Pani Pani!

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Here is the link to the Pani Pani Pani dance in which Ishani participated on the rain-washed Ganesh Puja Pandal in our Nile Valley township:

http://youtu.be/l-rtgHhK2kA

...Posted by Ishani






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Childhood Duuserah - Repeat Telecast

                                            

                                            

On the Coast of Coromandel

Where the early pumpkins blow,

In the middle of woods

Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo

...Edward Lear

I don't know about Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo, but I did live on the famed Coromandel Coast (with an Express Train named for it) during my childhood and school days. 

This narrow, Chile-like strip of the Southern Coast of the Bay of Bengal is as mysterious as the sound of its name. And its mystery lies in its anomalous climate relative to the Rest of India...indeed even the Rest of AP, like its North Coast, Telengana, Hyderabad and Rayalaseema.

And it is because it lies in a little-understood rain-shadow region. While the Rest of India is celebrating the much-awaited South-West Monsoon, both its wings sweeping the land give it a miss...they just skip by it.

Not for us the dramatic Break of Monsoon with its lightning and thunder and the sudden arrival of cooling moist winds. Not for us the tapur-tupur of rain drops swelling into streams, the songs and dances and heart-throbbing lyrics sung by our Kishore-da like:

"Mere naina saawan bhadon"

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNHyrLNi8zI 

And our geography dictates that being sandwiched between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer  that we had two summers instead of one...the first in mid-May when the Sun-God is overhead while traveling South to North, and the other in mid-August when doing his return journey, North to South. And, as usual, it is the second one that is the more termagant.

This didn't mean we kids were sheltered indoors in the sweltering unending heat...no...we got used to heat and dust and two summers meant that many more sunny days for outdoor play. 

And when the Rest of India was celebrating its charmed Autumnal festivals, we had our own rainy season in late October and November. For an equally mysterious reason, as the South-West Monsoon decides to retreat from the Sub-Continent, it chooses to do so through the Coromandel Coast as if saying, Sorry!

And we are lashed by cyclones, steady downpours and occasional tsunamis for a change.  Not for us any autumn...we don't have a Fall Season, no deciduous trees, and no white winters. When the Rest of India starts shivering in woolens and wayside fires, we have sumptuous rains. And when IIT KGP celebrates its Spring Festival rather early in the last week of January, we have our early First Summer. Such is the anomalous nature of our existence and our mental makeup. 

But we do choose to follow the Lunar Calendar along with the Rest of Hindu India. So we do celebrate the Navaratri and Diwali in October-November...both rain-washed.

We call our Devi Navaratri Festvial as Dusserah. And it used to be, during my innocence, a kids' festival. The first day of the Navaratri, my parents would download and open a couple of deal-wood boxes in front of our eager eyes. And take out several dolls wrapped carefully in cotton blouses and worn-out strips of silk saris. And arrange them neatly on the floor.

These dolls were not bought in one fell swoop in the market...many of them are family heirlooms purchased one by one over decades in temple-fairs. They were all made of baked and painted clay and very delicate. 

And then several chairs, benches, stools and planks were arranged to form a gallery with four or five stairs. And cover them with white dhutis.

Then all the dolls were arranged in strict order to form what we called:

"Doll Gallery" ("Bommala Koluvu"):

                               

http://www.thefullwiki.org/Vijayadasami

The pride of place belonged to Raamjee-Sitajee-Laxman-Hanuman-Combo because Raamjee was supposed to have prayed to Durga Mai before he killed Raavanjee...that is how it always is...an illustrious devotee or student steals the place of his Guru or Teacher...alas!

Then we had Shivjee with the snake around his neck. And many other deities.

For kids there were small figurines of fish, birds, crocs, apes and the inevitable Pappu Chetti:

                       

 http://www.mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=local&newsid=147206 

And we were allotted space in front of the Gallery of Dolls for making our wet-sand-sculptures in a Park. The Park had its toy train, swimming pool, and whatever we could imagine. And we planted some wet dhaniya seeds that grew in three days into sprouts and leaves along the highways of the park. 

And we competed with our neighbors for the First Prize of the Gallery of Dolls.

And year by year as we grew along with Free India, the Gallery of Dolls became extinct. To be replaced by Publicized Religion...the bigger the scams grew so did the Diamond-studded Crowns gifted to Tirupati Balajee.

And the Nehruvian Socialism gave way to Indirajee's Emergency, Rajivjee's Assassination,  Free Market, Jail Bharo and Blogs.

And the innocence of dolls vanished...

In 1962, my Father was transferred from Kovur to Kandukur. And I was there for my summer vacation from my University to assist him in shifting his luggage on top of a route-bus. The Conductor was in a hurry and midway, when the driver screeched to a sudden halt to save a buffalo we heard a THUMP-THUD and Dhoom and a peal of sounds. When we came out of the bus we found that our two deal-wood boxes fell down and all our dolls were scattered along the road in utter ruins....we left the broken boxes and dolls there itself and resumed our journey.

Soon enough, Nehru lost his China War and passed away...

And took with him our Gallery of Dolls...


...Posted by Ishani
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