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"Little snapping turtles snap -- so the great naturalist tells us -- before they are fairly out of the egg-shell"
...Oliver Wendell Holmes
'...Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone from a dog: what remains?'
Losing temper is an art...those who do it routinely, left and right indiscriminately, lose all respect and are ignored if they can't be avoided...except by those clever folks who know that once the heat of the moment passes the chap would be in a mellow mood of repentance and ready to make amends by granting out-of-turn promotions.
Sage Durvasa was known for his short fuse. But like all snapping turtles, once he got satiated, he cooled down and used to grant boons. He granted Kunti the boon to get a child from any God by uttering a secret mantra...since he could foresee that this beautiful girl would be married to an anemic infertile hubby.
But when he felt insulted, which was oftener, he would curse, like he cursed poor Shakuntala lost in her blog-thought. But he lost his sense of balance when he cursed Ambarish and had to eat crow because Ambarish (Mukhopadhyay) happened to be under the protection of Lord Vishnu himself.
There is a moral here...before you insult someone who looked like a buddhu, do some research into his cv.
As I narrated earlier, I was once accused of plagiarism in a hot moment by a Professor of an Ivy League School. My position was very compromised by circumstantial evidence and I knew it was touch and go for me. After recovering my senses I went to the Central Library (before Google was born) and spent a whole day scanning the Author Index of Physics Abstracts over the past forty years. And discovered that the chap didn't publish anything during the last two decades....that explains his possessiveness for his AJP Paper...like a mother who gave birth to a child after a thousand attempts. The rest of the match was a walkover...
Also the incident I narrated earlier where the Collector & District Magistrate of Nellore made me stand and wait outside his office for four hours and after finally letting me in before shutting shop dismissed me in half a minute saying NO to my request to excuse my sister from election duty on health grounds saying:
"Everyone falls sick just before election duty..."
"Please reconsider your decision"
"Once this man makes a decision, there is no going back"
And I was shunted out by his peon. But, India being India, my sister pulled one of several strings she had and made a midnight call to Hyderabad and the next morning, the peon that shoved me away had to come and tell her in person that she has been excused...I didn't want to meet the Collector again and simper, with my hands cupped over my ears, saying:
"Boo!"
Soon after I landed in KGP, I was in the Tech Market and suddenly I found that all shopkeepers left their counters and ran to form a ring around two chaps (shopkeepers themselves) shouting at each other at the top of their voices. The onlookers were enjoying the verbal duel. I was afraid by the tone and loudness of their quarrel that I would see blood flowing any minute. But nothing of that sort happened unfortunately...the two never touched each other...after arguing and possibly cursing each other in vile language, they departed, turning back once in a while to throw one more vilification at each other...perhaps all they wanted was to find out who had the last word. The crowd melted away in silence...
Things were different in the AP where I was born and brought up. No one would know what was happening before they hear blows and chops and cuts and thrusts between two grown-up adults. Then the crowd would gather and egg them on to fight to the finish taking sides impartially. All that the crowd wanted was some gore they had been starved of for more than a week. When they think things have gone too far and police may arrive anytime, two stalwarts would come and separate the two goons by pulling them apart...something the contestants were waiting and praying for...because there was no question of the 'last word'...it was the 'last blow' and this should be avoided at any cost. Because, the crowd would finally bring back the two goons and make them shake hands. Something that often used to happen in our Telugu movies.
During the 1970s there was an informal voting among the students of IIT KGP as to which Department had the shortest fuse. The result was:
"EE the shortest & AgE the longest'
Phy dept came somewhere in the middle.
I asked my friend and neighbor, Prof Padmanabhan of EE about it and he said:
"Yea, our ritual is to first throw the lab khata out of the window and then try to throw the student too...it has become a matter of prestige to us and a convention that can't be allowed to lapse"
I then asked my other friend and neighbor in the Faculty Hostel, Prof H Das (sadly no more) of the AgE Department and he said in cold blood:
"Welfare of our draft cattle is of prime concern to us"
...Posted by Ishani
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"Little snapping turtles snap -- so the great naturalist tells us -- before they are fairly out of the egg-shell"
...Oliver Wendell Holmes
'...Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone from a dog: what remains?'
Alice considered.
'The bone wouldn't remain, of course, if I took it—and the dog wouldn't remain: it would come to bite me—and I'm sure I shouldn't remain!'
'Then you think nothing would remain?' said the Red Queen.
'I think that's the answer.'
'Wrong, as usual,' said the Red Queen: 'the dog's temper would remain.'
'But I don't see how—'
'Why, look here!' the Red Queen cried. 'The dog would lose its temper, wouldn't it?'
'Perhaps it would,' Alice replied cautiously.
'Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!' the Queen exclaimed triumphantly.
Losing temper is an art...those who do it routinely, left and right indiscriminately, lose all respect and are ignored if they can't be avoided...except by those clever folks who know that once the heat of the moment passes the chap would be in a mellow mood of repentance and ready to make amends by granting out-of-turn promotions.
Sage Durvasa was known for his short fuse. But like all snapping turtles, once he got satiated, he cooled down and used to grant boons. He granted Kunti the boon to get a child from any God by uttering a secret mantra...since he could foresee that this beautiful girl would be married to an anemic infertile hubby.
But when he felt insulted, which was oftener, he would curse, like he cursed poor Shakuntala lost in her blog-thought. But he lost his sense of balance when he cursed Ambarish and had to eat crow because Ambarish (Mukhopadhyay) happened to be under the protection of Lord Vishnu himself.
There is a moral here...before you insult someone who looked like a buddhu, do some research into his cv.
As I narrated earlier, I was once accused of plagiarism in a hot moment by a Professor of an Ivy League School. My position was very compromised by circumstantial evidence and I knew it was touch and go for me. After recovering my senses I went to the Central Library (before Google was born) and spent a whole day scanning the Author Index of Physics Abstracts over the past forty years. And discovered that the chap didn't publish anything during the last two decades....that explains his possessiveness for his AJP Paper...like a mother who gave birth to a child after a thousand attempts. The rest of the match was a walkover...
Also the incident I narrated earlier where the Collector & District Magistrate of Nellore made me stand and wait outside his office for four hours and after finally letting me in before shutting shop dismissed me in half a minute saying NO to my request to excuse my sister from election duty on health grounds saying:
"Everyone falls sick just before election duty..."
"Please reconsider your decision"
"Once this man makes a decision, there is no going back"
And I was shunted out by his peon. But, India being India, my sister pulled one of several strings she had and made a midnight call to Hyderabad and the next morning, the peon that shoved me away had to come and tell her in person that she has been excused...I didn't want to meet the Collector again and simper, with my hands cupped over my ears, saying:
"Boo!"
Soon after I landed in KGP, I was in the Tech Market and suddenly I found that all shopkeepers left their counters and ran to form a ring around two chaps (shopkeepers themselves) shouting at each other at the top of their voices. The onlookers were enjoying the verbal duel. I was afraid by the tone and loudness of their quarrel that I would see blood flowing any minute. But nothing of that sort happened unfortunately...the two never touched each other...after arguing and possibly cursing each other in vile language, they departed, turning back once in a while to throw one more vilification at each other...perhaps all they wanted was to find out who had the last word. The crowd melted away in silence...
Things were different in the AP where I was born and brought up. No one would know what was happening before they hear blows and chops and cuts and thrusts between two grown-up adults. Then the crowd would gather and egg them on to fight to the finish taking sides impartially. All that the crowd wanted was some gore they had been starved of for more than a week. When they think things have gone too far and police may arrive anytime, two stalwarts would come and separate the two goons by pulling them apart...something the contestants were waiting and praying for...because there was no question of the 'last word'...it was the 'last blow' and this should be avoided at any cost. Because, the crowd would finally bring back the two goons and make them shake hands. Something that often used to happen in our Telugu movies.
During the 1970s there was an informal voting among the students of IIT KGP as to which Department had the shortest fuse. The result was:
"EE the shortest & AgE the longest'
Phy dept came somewhere in the middle.
I asked my friend and neighbor, Prof Padmanabhan of EE about it and he said:
"Yea, our ritual is to first throw the lab khata out of the window and then try to throw the student too...it has become a matter of prestige to us and a convention that can't be allowed to lapse"
I then asked my other friend and neighbor in the Faculty Hostel, Prof H Das (sadly no more) of the AgE Department and he said in cold blood:
"Welfare of our draft cattle is of prime concern to us"
...Posted by Ishani
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