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To be sure, I got my son after my marriage...but in many other ways my life has been in the reverse gear.
When I joined IIT KGP physics department as an associate lecturer at 21 in 1965, my teaching load was 21 hours a week...each hour was 60-minute strong and the week had all of 6 days.
When I retired as a senior professor at 62 in 2005, my teaching load was just 3 hours (three only) a week. And each hour had only 50 minutes and week just 4.5 teaching days.
When I was 13, I overheard a gentleman sympathizing with my plight, saying to my uncle:
"This poor boy has a heavy responsibility on his slender shoulders"
I didn't get it then but learned soon enough that I had to help Father educate and marry off six of his daughters. Which I did to the best of my ability. And then on, my responsibilities dwindled like a deciduous tree shedding its leaves in autumn. And here I am now at 71, having lost my wife 7 years younger to me, leading an absolutely irresponsible life like Bertram Wooster on a fabulous pension.
Anyway I am one of those rare Indians who happened to see an escalator before seeing an elevator.
In 1967, I was taken to Calcutta for a parasite ride by my friend V who was emigrating to America. After a busy day in cabs, we landed at the Reserve Bank of India perching in the Dalhousie Square:
And my friend who was from the city of Jabalpur (which he boasted had an escalator) invited me to join him in a ride on the damn thing to the second floor. Fortunately, there was a power shutdown in Dalhousie Square then and I escaped the promised ride which looked frightening to me. Then he suggested we walk up the steps of the escalator just for fun. But I was scared that power may arrive any moment and I would be bum-rushed...didn't know well my Calcutta Power House then...unlike now under didi's far-sighted bespectacled grim nose:
...The reason is with very little industries coming up in the state, West Bengal has been a power surplus state. Even the state electricity board has had 105 MW surplus power for the last two years, and the state also exports power to Bangladesh...
http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-lessons-kolkata-must-learn-from-the-maharashtra-power-crisis-2015918
Oh, Calcutta!
The next I saw a working escalator was half a century later in the Inorbit Mall here at Hyderabad. My son took me there against my will...I was rather forced to go to that glum mall...Sailaja didn't cook dinner at home and we were to eat out at Chutney's on the top floor of the said mall (all of 6 floors).
Sonoo, Sailja and Ishani got on to the escalator as if they were born to it...at least Ishani was.
And she jumped on to the incoming step and started climbing the moving stairs and jumped out landing square on her tiny feet.
And I was waiting and watching for the stairs to stop or at least slow down like that chap who waited for the waves to subside before he crossed the ocean.
And as other kids jeered, I made bold and jumped..and lost my balance and had to be propped up.
And when the 6th floor duly arrived, I jumped out in a hurry too soon and took a tumble.
To this day I haven't mastered the technique...although I never waited for the hum to subside before starting my lectures, even at 21...
There ought to be an escalator that stops when I reach every floor and takes off, like our Calcutta Metro:
"Doors are clooosing...Darwaja bandh ho raha hai...Dorja ta bando kora hocchey"
...Posted by Ishani
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To be sure, I got my son after my marriage...but in many other ways my life has been in the reverse gear.
When I joined IIT KGP physics department as an associate lecturer at 21 in 1965, my teaching load was 21 hours a week...each hour was 60-minute strong and the week had all of 6 days.
When I retired as a senior professor at 62 in 2005, my teaching load was just 3 hours (three only) a week. And each hour had only 50 minutes and week just 4.5 teaching days.
When I was 13, I overheard a gentleman sympathizing with my plight, saying to my uncle:
"This poor boy has a heavy responsibility on his slender shoulders"
I didn't get it then but learned soon enough that I had to help Father educate and marry off six of his daughters. Which I did to the best of my ability. And then on, my responsibilities dwindled like a deciduous tree shedding its leaves in autumn. And here I am now at 71, having lost my wife 7 years younger to me, leading an absolutely irresponsible life like Bertram Wooster on a fabulous pension.
Anyway I am one of those rare Indians who happened to see an escalator before seeing an elevator.
In 1967, I was taken to Calcutta for a parasite ride by my friend V who was emigrating to America. After a busy day in cabs, we landed at the Reserve Bank of India perching in the Dalhousie Square:
...The reason is with very little industries coming up in the state, West Bengal has been a power surplus state. Even the state electricity board has had 105 MW surplus power for the last two years, and the state also exports power to Bangladesh...
http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-lessons-kolkata-must-learn-from-the-maharashtra-power-crisis-2015918
Oh, Calcutta!
The next I saw a working escalator was half a century later in the Inorbit Mall here at Hyderabad. My son took me there against my will...I was rather forced to go to that glum mall...Sailaja didn't cook dinner at home and we were to eat out at Chutney's on the top floor of the said mall (all of 6 floors).
Sonoo, Sailja and Ishani got on to the escalator as if they were born to it...at least Ishani was.
And she jumped on to the incoming step and started climbing the moving stairs and jumped out landing square on her tiny feet.
And I was waiting and watching for the stairs to stop or at least slow down like that chap who waited for the waves to subside before he crossed the ocean.
And as other kids jeered, I made bold and jumped..and lost my balance and had to be propped up.
And when the 6th floor duly arrived, I jumped out in a hurry too soon and took a tumble.
To this day I haven't mastered the technique...although I never waited for the hum to subside before starting my lectures, even at 21...
There ought to be an escalator that stops when I reach every floor and takes off, like our Calcutta Metro:
"Doors are clooosing...Darwaja bandh ho raha hai...Dorja ta bando kora hocchey"
...Posted by Ishani
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